- published: 14 Oct 2012
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- author: Jonathan Lennon
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Beijing
Beijing (
/beɪˈdʒɪŋ/; Chinese: 北京; pinyin: Běijīng, [peɪ˨˩ t͡ɕiŋ˥]), formerly romanized as Peking ( /piːˈkɪŋ/ or /peɪˈkɪŋ/), is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The metropolis, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government, with 14 urban and suburban districts and two rural counties. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast.
Beijing is China's second largest city by urban population after Shanghai and is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's largest state-owned companies. Beijing is a major transportation hub in the national highway, expressway, railway and high-speed rail network. Beijing's Capital International Airport is the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic.
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Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
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Bunkers in Albania
During the forty-year leadership of Enver Hoxha of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, over 700,000 bunkers were built in the country – one for every four inhabitants. The bunkers (Albanian: bunkeri) are still a ubiquitous sight in Albania, with an average of 24 bunkers for every square kilometer of the country.
Hoxha's programme of "bunkerisation" resulted in the construction of bunkers in every corner of Albania, from mountain passes to city streets. They are considered to have had little military value and were never used for their intended purpose during the years of Communist rule (1945–1990). The cost of constructing them was a drain on Albania's resources, diverting them away from more pressing needs such as dealing with the country's housing shortage and poor roads.
The bunkers were abandoned following the collapse of Communism in 1990. Most are now derelict, though some have been reused for a variety of purposes including residential accommodation, cafés, storehouses and shelters for animals or the homeless. A few briefly saw use in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s but their most common use now is said to be as a convenient place for young Albanians to lose their virginity.
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Burma
Burma
i/ˈbɜrmə/ BUR-mə, also known as Myanmar i/ˌmjɑːnˈmɑr/ MYAHN--MAR, is a country in South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is bordered by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand. One-third of Burma's total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. At 676,578 km2 (261,227 sq mi), it is the 40th largest country in the world and the second largest country in Southeast Asia. Burma is also the 24th most populous country in the world with over 60.28 million people.
Burma is home to some of the early civilizations of Southeast Asia including the Pyu and the Mon. In the 9th century, the Burmans of the Kingdom of Nanzhao, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Empire in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture slowly became dominant in the country. During this period, Theravada Buddhism gradually became the predominant religion of the country. The Pagan Empire fell due to the Mongol invasions (1277–1301), and several warring states emerged. In the second half of the 16th century, the country was reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty which for a brief period was the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Burma as well as Manipur and Assam. The country was colonized by Britain following three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1885).
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Cambodia
Cambodia (
i/kæmˈboʊdiə/;Khmer: ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា, Kampuchea, IPA: [kɑmˈpuˈciə]), officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total landmass of 181,035 square kilometres (69,898 sq mi), it is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the northeast, Vietnam to the east, and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest.
With a population of over 14.8 million, Cambodia is the 68th most populous country in the world. The official religion is Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced by around 95% of the Cambodian population. The country minority groups include Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams and 30 various hill tribes. The capital and largest city is Phnom Penh; the political, economic, and cultural center of Cambodia. The kingdom is a constitutional monarchy with Norodom Sihamoni, a monarch chosen by the Royal Throne Council, as head of state. The head of government is Hun Sen, who is currently the longest serving leader in South East Asia and has ruled Cambodia for over 25 years.
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Changchun
Changchun (Chinese: 长春; pinyin: Chángchūn Manchu: ᠴᠠᠩ ᠴᡠᠨ, Cang cun) is the capital and largest city of Jilin province, located in the northeast of the People's Republic of China, in the center of the Songliao Plain. It is administered as a sub-provincial city with a population of 7,677,089 at the 2010 census under its jurisdiction, including counties and county-level cities. The name, which means "Long Spring", originated from the Jurchen language. The 6 urban districts of Changchun's city proper have a total population of 3,341,700 in 2010 which correspond to the built up area.
Changchun started as a minor trading town. In 1800, Emperor Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty selected a small village on the east bank of the Yitong River and named it "Changchun Ting." In 1889, it was promoted as "Changchun Fu".
In May 1898, as Russians were building a railway from Harbin to Lüshun (the southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway), Changchun got its first railway station, located in Kuancheng.
After Russia's loss of the southernmost section of this branch as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Kuancheng station (Kuanchengtze, in contemporary spelling) became the last Russian station on this branch. The next station to the south - the new "Japanese" Changchun station, just a short distance to the south - became the first station of the South Manchuria Railway, which now owned all the tracks running farther south, to Lüshun, which they re-gauged to the standard gauge (after a short stint of using the narrow Japanese gauge during the war).
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Changsha
Changsha (simplified Chinese: 长沙; traditional Chinese: 長沙; pinyin: Chángshā; Wade–Giles: Chang-sha) is the capital city of Hunan, in south-central China, located on the lower reaches of Xiang river, a branch of the Yangtze River. Its municipality covers an area of 11,819 sq. kilometers and, according to the 2010 Census, a population of 7,044,118 inhabitants.
Changsha was important from the time of the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC). In AD 750–1100 Changsha was an important commercial city, and its population increased greatly. Under the Qing dynasty, from 1664, it was the capital of Hunan province, and it was a major rice market. It was besieged during the Taiping Rebellion but never fell. Changsha was the site of Mao Zedong's conversion to communism. It was the scene of major battles in the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45 and was briefly occupied by the Japanese. Rebuilt since 1949, the city is now a major port and a commercial and industrial center.
The origins of the name "Changsha" are lost in antiquity. The name first appears in the 11th century BC, during the reign of King Cheng of the Zhou dynasty, a vassal lord from the Changsha area sent a type of softshell turtle known as "Changsha softshell turtle" (Chinese: 长沙鼈) as tribute to the Zhou king. In the 2nd century AD, historian Ying Shao wrote that the Qin dynasty use of the name Changsha for the area was a continuance of its old name.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is an American private Ivy League research university located in New York City, New York, United States. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the university operates seven Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Santiago and Nairobi.
The university was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. After the American Revolutionary War, King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. The University now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees, and in 1896 it was further renamed Columbia University. That same year, the university's campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its location in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (0.13 km2). The university encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.
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Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, – known as the October Crisis in Cuba and the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Kарибский кризис) in the USSR – was a thirteen-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other; the crisis occurred in October 1962, during the Cold War. In August 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the US to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose), the Cuban and Soviet governments secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. This action followed the 1958 deployment of Thor IRBMs in the UK (Project Emily) and Jupiter IRBMs to Italy and Turkey in 1961 – more than 100 US-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads. On October 14, 1962, a United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photoreconnaissance mission captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.
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Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國; Shinjitai: 大日本帝国; Romaji: Dai Nippon Teikoku; literally Great Imperial State of Japan; officially Great Japan or Empire of Great Japan; commonly as Imperial Japan or the Japanese Empire) was an empire and world power that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan on 3 May 1947.
Imperial Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei (富国強兵?, "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Army") led to its emergence as a world power, eventually culminating in its membership in the Axis alliance and the conquest of a large part of the Asia-Pacific region. At the height of its power in 1942, the Japanese Empire ruled over a land area spanning 7,400,000 square kilometres (2,857,000 sq mi), making it one of the largest maritime empires in history.
After several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Pacific War, the Empire of Japan also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples of the countries it conquered. After suffering many defeats and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies on 2 September 1945. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, and a new constitution was created with American involvement. The constitution came into force on 3 May 1947, officially dissolving the Empire. American occupation and reconstruction of the country continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose title is simply that ("the nation of Japan" Nippon-koku) or just "Japan" .
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Forbidden City
Coordinates: 39°54′53″N 116°23′26″E / 39.91472°N 116.39056°E / 39.91472; 116.39056
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.
Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 m2 (7,800,000 sq ft). The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.
Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War.
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Guangdong
Coordinates: 23°24′N 113°30′E / 23.4°N 113.5°E / 23.4; 113.5
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. It surpassed Henan and Sichuan to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are amongst the most populous and important cities in China.
Since 1989 Guangdong has topped the total GDP rankings among all provincial-level divisions, with Jiangsu and Shandong second and third in rank. According to provincial annual preliminary statistics, Guangdong's GDP in 2010 reached CNY 4,550 billion, or USD 689.02 billion, making its economy roughly the same size as that of Turkey or Indonesia. Guangdong has the fourth highest GDP per capita among all provinces of mainland China, after Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Liaoning. The province contributes approximately 12% of the PRC's national economic output, and is home to the production facilities and offices of a wide-ranging set of multinational and Chinese corporations. Guangdong also hosts the largest Import and Export Fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdong's capital city Guangzhou.
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Guangzhou Uprising
The Guangzhou Uprising (simplified Chinese: 广州起义; traditional Chinese: 廣州起義; pinyin: Gǔangzhōu Qǐyì) of 1927 was a failed Communist uprising in the city of Guangzhou in southern China.
On December 11, 1927, Red Guard citizens, directed by Communist political leaders, took over Guangzhou (then known as Canton in English). The uprising occurred despite the strong objections of Communist military commanders such as Ye Ting, Ye Jianying and Xu Xiangqian. Using the element of surprise, rebel forces took over most of the city within hours, despite a huge numerical and technical advantage held by government troops. The Communist leaders officially renamed the city's political structure "Guangzhou Soviet". However, the uprising was quickly crushed by warlord armies. Zhang Tailei, the leading Red Guard organizer, was killed in an ambush as he returned from a meeting. The takeover dissolved by the early morning of December 13, 1927.
In the resulting purges, many young Communists were killed, and the Guangzhou Soviet became known as the "Guangzhou Commune" or "Paris Commune of the East"; it lasted only a short time at the cost of more than 5,000 Communists dead and an equal number missing. Ye Ting, the military commander, was scapegoated, purged and blamed for the failure, despite the fact that the obvious disadvantage of the Communist force was the main cause of the defeat, as Ye Ting and other military commanders had correctly pointed out. Enraged by his unjustified treatment, Ye Ting left China and went into exile in Europe, not returning until nearly a decade later.
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Hiroshima
Hiroshima (広島市, Hiroshima-shi?) ( listen (help·info)) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It is best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. Its name 広島 means "Wide Island".
Hiroshima gained city status on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1980, Hiroshima became a designated city. The city's current mayor since April 2011 is Kazumi Matsui.
Hiroshima was founded on the river delta coastline of the Seto Inland Sea in 1589 by the powerful warlord Mōri Terumoto, who made it his capital after leaving Koriyama Castle in Aki Province.Hiroshima Castle was quickly built, and Terumoto moved in, in 1593. Terumoto was on the losing side at the Battle of Sekigahara. The winner, Tokugawa Ieyasu, deprived Mori Terumoto of most of his fiefs including Hiroshima and gave Aki province to Masanori Fukushima, a daimyo who had supported Tokugawa.
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Hunan
Coordinates: 27°24′N 111°48′E / 27.4°N 111.8°E / 27.4; 111.8
Hunan (help·info) (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin: Húnán) is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning "south of the lake"). Hunan is sometimes called and officially abbreviated as "湘" (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province.
Hunan borders Hubei in the north, Jiangxi to the east, Guangdong to the south, Guangxi to the southwest, Guizhou to the west, and Chongqing to the northwest. The capital is Changsha.
Hunan's primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern Miao, Tujia, Dong and Yao peoples. It entered the written history of China around 350 BC, when under the kings of the Zhou dynasty, it became part of the State of Chu. At this time, and for hundreds of years thereafter, it was a magnet for migration of Han Chinese from the north, who cleared most of the forests and began farming rice in the valleys and plains. To this day many of the small villages in Hunan are named after the Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties Periods, when nomadic invaders pushed these peoples south.
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Jinggang Mountains
Jinggangshan (Chinese: 井冈山; pinyin: Jǐnggāngshān; also Jinggang Shan, or Jinggang Mountains) is located in the Luoxian Mountains (羅霄山), in the remote border region between Jiangxi and Hunan provinces of China. It lies at the junction of four counties - Ninggang, Yongxing, Suichuan and Lingxian. The mountains cover some 670 km², with an average elevation of 381.5 m above sea level. The highest point is 1841 m above sea level.
The massif itself consists of a number of thickly forested parallel ridges. On the heights there is not much farmland and most settlements at the base of the mountains. The main settlement is at Ciping, which is surrounded by five villages - Big Well, Little Well, Middle Well, Lower Well and Upper Well - from which Jinggangshan (literally "Well Ridge Mountains") took its name.
Jinggangshan is known as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army (the People's Liberation Army of China) and the "cradle of the Chinese revolution". After the Kuomintang (KMT) turned against the Communist Party during the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, the Communists either went underground or fled to the countryside. Following the unsuccessful Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Mao Zedong led his 1000 remaining men to Jinggangshan, where he set up his first peasant soviet.
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NATO
Coordinates: 50°52′34.16″N 4°25′19.24″E / 50.8761556°N 4.4220111°E / 50.8761556; 4.4220111
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.
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Nazi Germany
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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North Korea
Coordinates: 40°00′N 127°00′E / 40°N 127°E / 40; 127 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국), commonly referred to as "North Korea" ( listen), is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea. The Amnok, or Yalu, and the Tumen rivers form the border between North Korea and China. A section of the Tumen River in the far northeast is the border with Russia.
The peninsula was governed by the Korean Empire until it was annexed by Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1910. It was divided into Soviet- and American-occupied zones in 1945, after the end of World War II. North Korea refused to participate in a United Nations–supervised election held in the south in 1948, which led to the creation of separate Korean governments for the two occupation zones. North and South Korea each claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean Peninsula, which led to the Korean War of 1950. The Armistice Agreement of 1953 ended the fighting; but the two countries are officially still at war against each other, for a peace treaty was never signed. Both states were accepted into the United Nations in 1991.
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North Vietnam
North Vietnam was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976. It was officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), and was proclaimed in Hanoi in 1945. Vietnam was partitioned following the Geneva Conference at the end of the First Indochina War.
During World War II, Vietnam was a French colony under Japanese occupation. Soon after Japan surrendered in 1945, the DRV was proclaimed in Hanoi. Viet Minh leader Hồ Chí Minh became head of the government while former emperor Bảo Đại became "supreme advisor." Non-communist figures were ousted from the DRV on October 30 and fled to the South. In November, the French reoccupied Hanoi and the French Indochina War followed. Bảo Đại became head of the Saigon government in 1949, which was then renamed the State of Vietnam. Following the Geneva Accords of 1954, Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel. The DRV became the government of North Vietnam while the State of Vietnam retained control in the South.
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Peking University
Coordinates: 39°59′23″N 116°18′19″E / 39.98972°N 116.30528°E / 39.98972; 116.30528
Peking University (simplified Chinese: 北京大学; traditional Chinese: 北京大學; pinyin: Běijīng Dàxué), colloquially known in Chinese as Beida (北大, Běidà), is a major research university located in Beijing, China, and a member of the C9 League. It is the first established modern national university of China. It was founded as Imperial University of Peking in 1898 as a replacement of the ancient Guozijian (國子監 guózǐjiàn). By 1920 it had become a center for progressive thought. Today, many national and international rankings frequently place Peking University as one of the best universities in China. In addition to its academics, Peking University is especially renowned for the beauty of its traditional Chinese architecture on its campus grounds.
Throughout its history, the university has educated and hosted many prominent modern Chinese thinkers, including figures such as: Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, Gu Hongming, Hu Shih, Li Dazhao, and Chen Duxiu. Peking University was influential in the birth of China's New Culture Movement, May Fourth Movement, the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and many other significant events.
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Peru
Perui/pəˈruː/ (Spanish: Perú; Quechua: Perú;Aymara: Piruw), officially the Republic of Peru (Spanish: República del Perú, pronounced: [reˈpuβlika ðel peˈɾu] (
listen)), is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.
Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures, spanning from the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty, which included most of its South American colonies. After achieving independence in 1821, Peru has undergone periods of political unrest and fiscal crisis as well as periods of stability and economic upswing.
Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. Its geography varies from the arid plains of the Pacific coast to the peaks of the Andes Mountains and the tropical forests of the Amazon Basin. It is a developing country with a high Human Development Index score and a poverty level around 31%. Its main economic activities include agriculture, fishing, mining, and manufacturing of products such as textiles.
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Poznań 1956 protests
The Poznań 1956 protests, also known as Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June (Polish: Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland. Demonstrations by workers demanding better conditions began on June 28, 1956, at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and were met with violent repression.
A crowd of approximately 100,000 gathered in the city center near the UB secret police building. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie and the Internal Security Corps under Polish-Soviet general Stanislav Poplavsky were ordered to suppress the demonstration and during the pacification fired at the protesting civilians.
The death toll was placed between 57 and over a hundred people, including a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzałkowski. Hundreds of people sustained injuries. Nonetheless the Poznań protests were an important milestone on the way to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government in Poland in October.
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Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China.
The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in contemporary Northeastern China. The Aisin Gioro leader, Nurhachi, who was originally a vassal of the Ming emperors, began unifying the Jurchen clans in the late sixteenth century. By 1635, Nurhachi's son Hong Taiji could claim they constituted a single and united Manchu people and began forcing the Ming out of Liaoning in southern Manchuria. In 1644, the Ming capital Beijing was sacked by a peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt, who then proclaimed the Shun dynasty. The last Ming ruler, the Chongzhen Emperor, committed suicide when the city fell. When Li Zicheng moved against Ming general Wu Sangui, the latter made an alliance with the Manchus and opened the Shanhai Pass to the Manchurian army. Under Prince Dorgon, they seized control of Beijing and overthrew Li Zicheng's short-lived Shun Dynasty. Complete pacification of China was accomplished around 1683 under the Kangxi Emperor.
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Serve the People
"Serve the People" or "Service for the People" (Chinese: 为人民服务; pinyin: wèi rénmín fúwù) is a political slogan which first appeared in Mao-era China. It originates from the title of a speech by Mao Zedong, delivered on September 8, 1944. The slogan was also widely used in the United States by students and youth during the Asian American movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. The slogan was very popular due to the strong Maoist influence on the New Left, considerably amongst the Red Guard Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Yellow Brotherhood of West Los Angeles.
Mao Zedong wrote this speech to commemorate the death of a PLA Soldier, Zhang Side, a participant in the Long March who died in the collapse of a kiln. In the speech he quoted a phrase written by the famous Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian, "Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather." (“人固有一死，或重于泰山，或轻于鸿毛。”). Mao continued: "To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather. Comrade Zhang Side died for the people, and his death is indeed weightier than Mount Tai."
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Shaanxi
Shaanxi (help·info) (simplified Chinese: 陕西; traditional Chinese: 陝西; pinyin: Shǎnxī; Wade–Giles: Shan-hsi; Postal map spelling: Shensi) is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province. Shaanxi is the historical home, along with Gansu of the dialect of the Dungans, of the Hui people, who emigrated out of China to Central Asia.
By regular Hanyu Pinyin rules, if tone marks are not written, both Shaanxi and the neighbouring province of Shanxi, to the east of Shaanxi, should be spelled "Shanxi"; the difference is in tone: Shānxī (山西) and Shǎnxī (陕西). To make the difference clear without tonal marks, the spelling "Shaanxi" was contrived (following the romanization system of Yuen Ren Chao) for the province of Shǎnxī, while "Shanxi" is used for the province of Shānxī. Shaanxi is the official spelling on Chinese Government's official web portal. This makes "Shaanxi" the only name of Chinese provinces that has not been romanized according to pinyin rules.
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Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the largest city proper by population in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities of the PRC, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010. It is a global city, with influence in commerce, culture, finance, media, fashion, technology, and transport. It is a major financial center and the busiest container port in the world.
Located in the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China, Shanghai sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River in the middle portion of the Chinese coast. The municipality borders Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces to the west, and is bounded to the east by the East China Sea.
Once a fishing and textiles town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to European recognition of its favorable port location and economic potential. The city was one of several opened to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the first opium war and the subsequent 1842 Treaty of Nanking which allowed the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement. The city then flourished as a center of commerce between east and west, and became the undisputed financial hub of the Asia Pacific in the 1930s. However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, the city's international influence declined. In the 1990s, the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city.
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Shaoshan
Shaoshan (Chinese: 韶山; pinyin: Sháoshān) is a county-level city in Xiangtan, Hunan Province, noted as the birthplace of Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China. Shaoshan was an important base during the Chinese Communist Revolution.
Shaoshan residents have capitalised on their most well-known resident such that the city is also the birthplace of Mao's Family Restaurant, a restaurant chain that has spread to many other cities. On the one hand, driven economy in many rural areas. On the other hand, spreading the Chinese nation's traditional culture and let people know more about Chinese nation's traditional culture.
Mao remains a popular figure in the area.
Population: city consists of 100,000 residents of which 16,000 are non-farmers. The total land area is 210 square kilometres (81 sq mi).
Geography: in the Hunan province of Hunan in the east-central hilly region, the geographical coordinates of longitude 112 ° 23'52 "-112 ° 38'13", latitude 27 ° 51'40 "-28 ° 1'53".
Topography: hilly areas. The city's development over the whole territory of the formation, geological structure is complicated. Hills, gurgling streams, red soil segment is connected.
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Taiwan
Taiwan (i/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country, and New Taipei is the most populous city.
The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
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Tiananmen
The Tiananmen, Tian'anmen or Gate of Heavenly Peace is a famous monument in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is widely used as a national symbol. First built during the Ming Dynasty in 1420, Tiananmen is often referred to as the front entrance to the Forbidden City. However, the Meridian Gate (午门) is the first entrance to the Forbidden City proper, while Tiananmen was the entrance to the Imperial City, within which the Forbidden City was located. Tiananmen is located to the north of Tiananmen Square, across the street from the plaza from Chang'an Avenue.
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Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world (440,000 m² - 880m by 500m or 109 acres - 960 by 550 yd). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history. Outside China, the square is best known in recent memory as the focal point of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, a pro-democracy movement which ended on 4 June 1989 with the declaration of martial law in Beijing by the government and the death of several hundred civilians.
The Tiananmen Gate to the Forbidden City was built in 1415 during the Ming Dynasty. Towards the demise of the Ming Dynasty, heavy fighting between Li Zicheng and the early Qing emperors damaged (or perhaps destroyed) the gate. The Tian'anmen square was designed and built in 1651, and has since enlarged four times its original size in the 1950s.
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Xiangtan
Xiangtan (Chinese: 湘潭; pinyin: Xiāngtán; Wade–Giles: Hsiang-tan) is a city in China's Hunan Province that is located on the lower reaches of Xiang river. The hometowns of several founding leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, including Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Peng Dehuai are in the Xiangtan Municipal District, as well as the hometowns of Qing Dynasty painter Qi Baishi and scholar-general Zeng Guofan.
It has 2,748,552 inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 1,779,960 live in the built up area' (2 urban districts plus Xiangtan county). With adjoining 4 Zhuzhou urban districts being agglomerated, the joint built up areas is home to 2,586,948 inhabitants.
Relics from Daxi culture indicates that people inhabited the Xiangtan area in the 3rd millennium BC. Shang Dynasty bronzewares have been found in the region, as well as tombs from the Warring States Period. During the Three Kingdoms Period, the kingdom of Eastern Wu built a city in the west of modern Xiangtan City and organized the Hengyang Commandery (Chinese: 衡陽郡) around it. In AD 749, the Tang Dynasty organized the area as Xiangtan County, centered at modern Yisu River (Chinese: 易俗河). By the time of the Northern Song Dynasty, Xiangtan's good access to both land and water trade routes had established it as the major commercial center of the region.
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Xinhua News Agency
The Xinhua News Agency (simplified Chinese: 新华通讯社; traditional Chinese: 新華通訊社; pinyin: Xīnhuá tōngxùnshè, IPA: [ɕínxwǎ]; /ˈʃiːnhwɑː/; literally "New China News Agency") is the official press agency of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in China. It is the largest news agency in China, ahead of the China News Service. Xinhua is subordinate to the State Council and reports to the Communist Party of China's Publicity and Public Information Departments. Xinhua's headquarters complex, the "pencil building", is at No. 57 Xuanwumenxi Street, Beijing. Its website Xinhua.org or Xinhuanet.com is headquartered on the twentieth floor of the Dacheng Plaza (大成大厦 Dàchéng Dàshà) in Xicheng District, Beijing.
Xinhua employs more than 10,000 people, operates 107 foreign bureaus worldwide, and maintains 31 bureaus in China—one for each province, plus a military bureau. As most of the newspapers in China cannot afford to station correspondents abroad, or even in every Chinese province, they rely on Xinhua feeds to fill their pages. People's Daily, for example, uses Xinhua material for approximately 25 percent of its stories. Xinhua is a publisher as well as a news agency—it owns more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines, and it prints in eight languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic and Japanese.
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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945 , was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta, in the Crimea.
The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial.
Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin). It had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and it was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Harry S Truman, who replaced the late Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, who was replaced mid-point by the newly elected British Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
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Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai (Chinese: 中南海; pinyin: Zhōngnánhǎi) is an area in central Beijing, China adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council (Central government) of the People's Republic of China. The term Zhongnanhai is closely linked with the central government and senior Communist Party officials. It is often used as a metonym for the Chinese leadership at large (in the same sense that the term White House frequently refers to the President of the United States and his associates). The state leaders, including Hu Jintao, and other top CPC and PRC leadership figures carry out many of their day-to-day administrative activities inside the compound, such as meetings with foreign dignitaries. China Central Television frequently shows footage of meetings inside the compound, but limits its coverage largely to views of the interior of buildings.
The name of the Zhongnanhai complex, located west of the Forbidden City, means "central and southern seas/lakes", referring to two lakes (the "Central Sea" and "Southern Sea") located within the compound; it is sometimes translated as "Sea Palaces". These two lakes are part of a series of irrigation projects carried out during the construction of the nearby Forbidden City. Also part of the same system is the "Northern Sea", or "Beihai", now a public park. And the "Ten Temple Sea", or "Shichahai", is connected to Beihai at the north.
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14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama (religious name: Tenzin Gyatso, shortened from Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, born Lhamo Dondrub, 6 July 1935) is the 14th and current Dalai Lama, as well as the longest lived incumbent. Dalai Lamas are the most influential figures in the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, although the 14th has consolidated control over the other lineages in recent years. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, and is also well known for his lifelong advocacy for Tibetans inside and outside Tibet. Tibetans traditionally believe him to be the reincarnation of his predecessors and a manifestation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
The Dalai Lama was born in Taktser, Qinghai (also known to Tibetans as Amdo), and was selected as the rebirth of the 13th Dalai Lama two years later, although he was only formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama on 17 November 1950, at the age of 15. He inherited control over a government controlling an area roughly corresponding to the Tibet Autonomous Region just as the nascent People's Republic of China wished to assert central control over it. There is a dispute over whether the respective governments reached an agreement for a joint Chinese-Tibetan administration.
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Abimael Guzmán
Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso (born 3 December 1934), also known by the nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo (English: Chairman Gonzalo), a former professor of philosophy, was the leader of the Shining Path during the Maoist insurgency known as the internal conflict in Peru. Shining Path had been active in Peru since the late 1970s and began what it called "the armed struggle" on 17 May 1980. Wanted on charges of terrorism and treason, Guzmán was captured by the Peruvian government in 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He is currently incarcerated at the Callao naval base, near the city of Lima, Peru. While the activity of the insurgency increased shortly after Guzmán's capture[citation needed], it has declined in the years following. It has been criticized for its violence against peasants, trade union organizers, and elected officials, which were deemed by the group to be collaborating with the Peruvian state. Shining Path is on the U.S. Department of State's "Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations" list. The United Kingdom, the European Union, and Peru likewise describe Shining Path as a terrorist group and prohibit providing funding or other financial support.[citation needed]
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Adam Malik
Adam Malik Batubara (22 July 1917 – 5 September 1984) was Indonesia's third vice president, a senior diplomat, and one of the pioneers of Indonesian journalism.
Malik was born in Pematang Siantar, North Sumatra, Dutch East Indies to Abdul Malik Batubara and Salamah Lubis. He is from a Batak Muslim family of Batubara clan. After completing Junior High School, he received his first job as a shopkeeper, filling in time by reading books and increasing his knowledge.
Malik quickly developed an interest in politics and aged just 17, became the Chairman of the Pematang Siantar branch of Partindo (Indonesia Party). In this position, Malik campaigned for the Dutch Colonial Government to grant independence to Indonesia. As a result of this, Malik was put in prison for disobeying the Colonial Government's ban on political assemblies. Once he was freed, Malik left Pematang Siantar for Jakarta.
After leaving hometown, Malik pursued a job as a journalist. He wrote for Partindo's Party Magazine and Pelita Andalas Newspaper. In 1937, along with like-minded colleagues, Malik formed ANTARA. ANTARA would develop to become Indonesia's national news agency.
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Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.
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Adolfo Suárez
Adolfo Suárez y González, 1st Duke of Suárez, Grandee of Spain, KOGF (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈswaɾeθ]; born 25 September 1932) is a Spanish lawyer and politician. Suárez was Spain's first democratically elected prime minister after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and the key figure in the country's transition to democracy.
He is a son of Hipólito Suárez Guerra and Herminia González Prados (Ávila, 1910 – 18 July 2006), and the brother of Doña María del Carmen Suárez González, who is married to Aurelio Delgado Martín
Suárez studied Law at Salamanca University, and held several government posts during the late Francoist regime.
He became the Minister Secretary General of the National Movement (Movimiento Nacional), a body that served as sole political party, for 18 years, a period that extended beyond the death of Franco in November 1975. At a rally just a month before Franco's death, Suárez was queried by the aging Caudillo on the political future of Spain and told him frankly that the Movement would not likely long survive Franco and that democratization was inevitable. Suárez was appointed as the 138th Prime Minister of Spain by the Spanish King Juan Carlos on 4 July 1976, a move opposed by leftists and some centrists given his Francoist history. As a nationalist, he was chosen by the monarch to lead the country towards a democratic, parliamentary monarchy without annoying the powerful conservative factions (especially the military) in the country. Surprising many observers and political opponents, Suárez introduced Political Reform in 1976 as a first, decisive step in the Transition (La Transición) to democracy.
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Agostinho Neto
António Agostinho Neto (September 17, 1922 – September 10, 1979) served as the first President of Angola (1975–1979), leading the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the war for independence and the civil war. His birthday is celebrated as National Heroes Day, a public holiday in Angola.
Born at Ícolo e Bengo, in Bengo Province, Angola, in 1922, Neto attended high school in the capital city, Luanda; his father, also called Agostinho Neto, was a Methodist pastor. The younger Neto left Angola for Portugal, and studied medicine at the universities of Coimbra and Lisbon. He combined his academic life with covert political activity of a revolutionary sort; and PIDE, the security police force of the Estado Novo regime headed by Portuguese Prime Minister Salazar, arrested him in 1951 for his separatist activism. Seven years later he was released from prison, and he finished his studies, marrying a white 23-years-old Portuguese woman who was born in Trás-os-Montes, Maria Eugénia da Silva, the same day he graduated. He returned to Angola in 1959.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shah Massoud (احمد شاه مسعود Aḥmad Šāh Mas'ūd; September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was a political and military leader in Afghanistan. He was a central figure, known as the "Lion of Panjshir", in the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989, fought against the alliance of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the early 1990s, and led resistance against the Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001. Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001, two days before the attacks of September 11.
Massoud was an Afghan-Tajik Sunni Muslim born in the Panjshir in northern Afghanistan. He studied engineering at Kabul University in the 1970s, where he became involved with Muslim anti-communist movements around Burhanuddin Rabbani. He led an uprising against the Soviet-backed communist government in his native Panjshir in 1979. His role in the following period of armed resistance against the Soviet occupation forces earned him the nickname of "Lion of Panjshir" (شیر پنجشیر). Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan the Wall Street Journal named Massoud "the Afghan who won the Cold War". In 1992, he was appointed minister of defense in the government of the newly established Islamic State of Afghanistan by the peace and power-sharing agreement Peshawar Accords. He led the Islamic State's defense against attacks by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's alliance of militias which were backed by Pakistan. Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud, who rejected the Taliban's and Al-Qaeda's extremist interpretation of Islam, returned to the role of an armed opposition leader, serving as the military and political leader of the multiethnic United Islamic Front (also known in the West as Northern Alliance). In 1997, he helped end the civil war in neighboring Tajikistan urging parties to accept a United Nations peace plan.
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Alain Poher
Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher (French: [alɛ̃ pɔɛʁ]; 17 April 1909 – 9 December 1996) was a French centrist politician, affiliated first with the Popular Republican Movement and later with the Democratic Centre. He served as a Senator for Val-de-Marne from 1946 to 1995. He was President of the Senate from 3 October 1968 to 1 October 1992 and, in that capacity, served twice as the country's interim president. Candidate in the 1969 presidential election, he was defeated by Georges Pompidou in the second round.
Poher was born in Ablon-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne.
He graduated from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris and later studied law. On 19 August 1938 he married Henriette Tugler, with whom he had one daughter, Marie-Agnès.
His political career began in 1938, when he became a junior executive officer in the Ministry of Finance.
Later he served on several positions before entering Senate:
A longtime ally and political protege of Schumann, Poher was elected to the Senate in 1952, where he remained for over 40 years (until 1995). As Senator he continued to serve in some governments and his home town mayor. Like Schuman, he was known for strongly pro-European integration positions, having served as President of the European Parliament (1968–1969).
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Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi (Italian pronunciation: [alˈtʃiːde de ˈɡasperi]; April 3, 1881 – August 19, 1954) was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics. A conservative Catholic, he was one of the Founding fathers of the European Union, along with the Frenchman Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer.
De Gasperi was born in Pieve Tesino in Tyrol, which at that time belonged to Austria-Hungary, now part of the Trentino in Italy. His father was a local police officer of limited financial means. From 1896 De Gasperi was active in the Social Christian movement. In 1900 he joined the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in Vienna, where he played an important role in the inception of the Christian student movement. He was very much inspired by the Rerum Novarum encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. In 1904 he took an active part in the student demonstrations in favour of an Italian-language university. Imprisoned with other protesters during the inauguration of the Italian juridical faculty in Innsbruck, he was released after twenty days. In 1905, De Gasperi obtained a degree in philology.
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Aldo Moro
Aldo Moro (Italian pronunciation: [ˈaldo ˈmɔːro]; September 23, 1916 – May 9, 1978) was an Italian politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years.
A leader of Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy, DC), Moro was considered an intellectual and a patient mediator, especially in the internal life of his party. He was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, by the left-wing Red Brigades (BR), and killed after 55 days of captivity.
Moro was born in Maglie, in the province of Lecce (Puglia), into a family from Ugento. At 4, he moved with his family to Milan, but they soon moved back to Puglia, where he gained a classical high school degree at Archita lyceum in Taranto. Till 1939 he studied Law at the University of Bari, an institution where he was later to hold the post of ordinary professor of philosophy of Law and Colonial Policy (1941) and of Criminal Law (1942).
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Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubček (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈalɛksandɛr ˈduptʃɛk]; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia (1968–1969), famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring. Later, after the overthrow of the government in 1989, he was Chairman of the federal Czecho-Slovak parliament.
Dubček was born in Uhrovec, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), and raised in the Kyrgyz SSR of the Soviet Union (now Kyrgyzstan) as a member of the Esperantist industrial cooperative Interhelpo. His father, Štefan, moved from Chicago to Czechoslovakia after World War I, when he refused to serve in the military for his pacifism. Alexander Dubček was conceived in Chicago, but born after the family relocated to Czechoslovakia. When Alexander Dubček was three, the family moved to the Soviet Union, in part to help build socialism and in part because jobs were scarce in Czechoslovakia. In 1938 the family returned to Czechoslovakia.
During the Second World War, Alexander Dubček joined the underground resistance against the wartime pro-German Slovak state headed by Jozef Tiso. In August 1944, Dubček fought in the Slovak National Uprising and was wounded. His brother, Július, was killed.
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Alexei Kosygin
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin (Russian: Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, tr. Aleksej Nikolajevič Kosygin; IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨgʲɪn]; (21 February [O.S. 5 March] 1904 – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet-Russian statesman during the Cold War. Kosygin was born in the city of St. Petersburg in 1904 to a Russian working class family. He was conscripted into the labor army during the Russian Civil War, and after the Red Army's demobilisation in 1921, he worked in Siberia as an industrial manager. Kosygin returned to Leningrad in the early 1930s and worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. During the Great Patriotic War (World War II), Kosygin was a member of the State Defence Committee and was tasked with moving Soviet industry out of territories soon to be overrun by the German military. He served as Minister of Finance for a year before becoming Minister of Light Industry and later, the Minister of Light and Food Industry. One year before his death in 1953, Stalin removed Kosygin from the Politburo, intentionally weakening his position within the Soviet hierarchy.
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Anatoly Dobrynin
Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin (Russian: Анатолий Фёдорович Добрынин, November 16, 1919 – April 6, 2010) was a Russian statesman and a former Soviet diplomat and politician. He was Soviet Ambassador to the United States, serving from 1962 to 1986 and most notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was appointed by Nikita Khrushchev.
Dobrynin was born in the village of Krasnaya Gorka, near Mozhaisk in the Moscow Oblast. His father was a locksmith. He attended the Moscow Aviation Institute and after graduation went to work for the Yakovlev Design Bureau. He entered the Higher Diplomatic School in 1944 and graduated with distinction.
Dobrynin joined the Soviet Diplomatic Service working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Training Division. He later joined the Secretariat of the ministry working for Molotov, Shepilov, Gromyko and Zorin. He was appointed Deputy Secretary-General at the United Nations in 1957 and returned to Moscow as head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry's North America Department in 1959. Dobrynin was appointed Soviet Ambassador to the USA in 1962.
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Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (Russian: Андре́й Андре́евич Громы́ко; Belarusian Андрэ́й Андрэ́евіч Грамы́ка; 18 July [O.S. 5 July] 1909 – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1985–1987). Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the nickname Mr. Nyet ("Mr. No").
Gromyko's political career started in 1939 with his employment at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (later renamed Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1946). In 1943 Gromyko became the Soviet ambassador to the United States, leaving in 1946 to become the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Upon his return to the Soviet Union he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952.
Gromyko played a direct role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in his role as the Soviet Foreign Minister. Gromyko helped negotiate arms limitations treaties such as the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and SALT I and II among others. Under Leonid Brezhnev's leadership Gromyko helped build the policy of détente between the US and the USSR. He supported Mikhail Gorbachev's candidacy for General Secretary in 1985. Gromyko lost his office as foreign minister when Gorbachev became General Secretary, and was instead appointed to the largely ceremonial office of head of state. Gromyko retired from political life in 1988 and died the following year on 2 July 1989 in Moscow.
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Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War was a major civil conflict in the Southern African state of Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with some interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Prior to this, a decolonisation conflict had taken place in 1974–75, following the Angolan War of Independence. The Civil War was primarily a struggle for power between two former liberation movements, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). At the same time, it served as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War, due to heavy intervention by major opposing powers such as the Soviet Union and the United States.
Each organisation had different roots in the Angolan social fabric and mutually incompatible leaderships, despite their sharing the aim of ending colonial occupation. Although both the MPLA and UNITA had socialist leanings, for the purpose of mobilising international support they posed as "Marxist-Leninist" and "anti-communist", respectively. A third movement, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), having fought the MPLA alongside UNITA during the war for independence and the decolonization conflict, played almost no role in the Civil War. Additionally, the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), an association of separatist militant groups, fought for the independence of the province of Cabinda from Angola.
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Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957. He was also Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including during the Second World War. He is best known for his outspoken opposition to appeasement in the 1930s, his diplomatic leadership in the 1940s and 1950s, and the failure of his Middle East policy in 1956 that ended his premiership.
Eden's worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement, a "Man of Peace", and a skilled diplomat was overshadowed in the second year of his premiership when the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis, which critics across party lines regarded as an historic setback for British foreign policy, signalling the end of British predominance in the Middle East. Most historians argue that he made a series of blunders, especially not realizing the depth of opposition to military action by the US. Most historians say that Eden completely dominated the British decision-making process in the Suez crisis. However, Jonathan Pearson argues in Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis: Reluctant Gamble (2002) that Eden was more reluctant and less bellicose than most historians say.
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António de Spínola
António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola, GCTE, ComA (generally referred to as António de Spínola, though this particular surname never had a particle) (Santo André, Estremoz, April 11, 1910 – Lisbon, August 13, 1996) was a Portuguese soldier, conservative politician and author, who was important in the transition to democracy following the Portuguese Carnation Revolution.
He was a son of António Sebastião Spínola and first wife Maria Gabriela Alves Ribeiro, both natives of Madeira.
Spínola entered the Colégio Militar in 1920, beginning what would be a very successful military career. By 1928, Spínola was at Portugal's Military Academy, where he stood out as a young and promising cavalry officer.
In Anjos, Lisbon, by August 1932, he married Maria Helena Martin Monteiro de Barros (14 January 1913 - 23 May 2002), daughter of João de Azevedo Monteiro de Barros and his German wife Gertrud Elisabete Martin.
In 1939, he became adjunct-de-camp of the Guarda Nacional Republicana (English: Republican National Guard). In 1941 he travelled to the German-Russian Front, as an observer, to monitor Wehrmacht movements during the encirclement of Leningrad (the Portuguese volunteers had been incorporated into the Blue Division).
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Anwar Sadat
Anwar El Sadat (Arabic: محمد أنور السادات Anwar as-Sādāt, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [mæˈħæmmæd ˈʔɑnwɑɾˤ essæˈdæːt]; 25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy.
He was a senior member of the Free Officers group that overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdul Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970. As president he led Egypt in the October War of 1973 to re-acquire Egyptian territory lost to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. This won him the Nobel Peace Prize but also made him unpopular among some Arabs, resulting in a temporary suspension of Egypt's membership in the Arab League, and eventually his assassination.
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Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐˈniβɐɫ kɐˈvaku ˈsiɫvɐ]; born 15 July 1939), is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006.
He was previously Prime Minister of Portugal from 6 November 1985 to 28 October 1995. His tenure of ten years was the longest of any Prime Minister since Salazar, and he was the first Portuguese Prime Minister to have won an absolute parliamentary majority under the current constitutional system (which was established after the country's redemocratization following the Carnation Revolution).
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Arthur Sze
Arthur Sze (b. 1950 New York City) is a second-generation Chinese American poet.
Sze was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of eight books of poetry. His own poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Kenyon Review, Manoa, The Paris Review, Field, The New Yorker, and Virginia Quarterly Review, and have been translated into Albanian, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Romanian, and Turkish. Sze is the author of eight books of poetry, including The Ginkgo Light (Copper Canyon Press, 2009) He has been included in anthologies such as Articulations: The Body and Illness in Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 1994), Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, (Kaya Production, 1995), I Feel a Little Jumpy around You (Simon & Schuster, 1996), What Book!?: Buddhist Poems from Beats to Hiphop (Parallax Press 1998), and American Alphabets (Oberlin College Press, 2006).
He was a Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University, a Doenges Visiting Artist at Mary Baldwin College, and has conducted residencies at Brown University, Bard College, and Naropa University. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is the first poet laureate of Santa Fe and has won three grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.
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Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet (Spanish pronunciation: [auˈɣusto pinoˈtʃet]), (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973. He was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of the Republic from 1974 until transferring power to a democratically elected president in 1990.
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Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal (born Sultan Hashem; 6 January 1929 – 1 or 3 December 1996) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Karmal was born in Kamari and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his career as a bureaucrat. Before, during and after his career as a bureaucrat Karmal was a leading member of the Afghan movement. He was introduced to Marxism by Mir Akbar Khyber during his imprisonment for activities deemed too radical by the government. When the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was formed, Karmal became one of its leading members, and eventually became the leader of the Parcham faction. When the PDPA split in 1967, the Parcham-faction established a Parcham PDPA, while their ideological nemesis, the Khalqs, established a Khalqist PDPA. Under Karmal's leadership, the Parchamite PDPA participated in Mohammad Daoud Khan's rise to power, and his subsequent regime. While relations were good at the beginning, Daoud began a major purge of leftist influence in the mid-1970s. This in turn led to the refoundation of the PDPA in 1977. The PDPA took power in the 1978 Saur Revolution.
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.
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Bettino Craxi
Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi (pronounced [betˈtiːno ˈkraksi]) (24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.
Craxi led the 2nd longest-lived government of Italy during the republican era (after the 2nd Silvio Berlusconi cabinet), and had strong influence in Italian politics throughout the eighties; for some time, he was a close ally of two key figures of Christian Democracy, Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlani, in a loose cross-party alliance often dubbed CAF (from the first letter of the surname Craxi-Andreotti-Forlani). Craxi had a firm grasp on a party previously troubled by factionalism, and tried to distance it from the communists and to bring it closer to Christian Democrats and other parties; his objective was to create an Italian version of European reformist socialist parties, like the German SPD or the French Socialist Party. The Italian Socialist Party reached its post-war apex when it increased its share of votes in the general election of 1987. However, the Italian Socialist Party never outgrew the much larger Italian Communist Party, whose highly charismatic leader, Enrico Berlinguer, was a fierce adversary of Craxi's policies throughout the years.
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Bo Gu
Qin Bangxian (Chinese: 秦邦憲; pinyin: Qín Bāngxiàn), better known as Bo Gu (Chinese: 博古; pinyin: Bó Gǔ) (May 14, 1907 – April 8, 1946) was a senior leader of the Chinese Communist Party in its early stages, and well known as a member of the group of 28 Bolsheviks.
A native of Wuxi, Jiangsu, Qin was born in 1907. He studied in the Suzhou Industrial School in his early years, and took an active role in the activities against imperialism and warlords tyrannizing China at that time. In 1925 Qin entered the Shanghai University, known for its impact on young revolutionists, early CCP leaders such as Qu Qiubai and Deng Zhongxia being its teachers and introducing Marxism and Leninism. It was there that Qin showed great interest in Marxism and Leninism. In the same year, Qin joined the May 30th Movement for protest and boycott against imperialism; and he joined the CPC before long.
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Bolesław Bierut
Bolesław Bierut ([bɔˈlɛswaf ˈbjɛrut] ( listen); 1892–1956; also known under assumed names Jerzy Bolesław Bielak and Bolesław Birkowski) was a Polish Communist leader, NKVD agent, and a hard-line Stalinist who became President of Poland after the Soviet takeover of the country in the aftermath of World War II.
Bierut was born in Rury Jezuickie, now a part of Lublin, as the son of Henryk Rutkowski, a village teacher, and his wife Barbara Biernacka (Wojciech and Maria, according to IPN source). He later adopted the surname "Bierut" combining the first syllables of his parents' surnames. In 1918 he took courses at the Warsaw School of Economics, and in 1924–1930 went to Moscow, to be trained at the school of the Communist International.
In 1930–1931 Bierut was sent by the Comintern to Austria, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. In 1933 he became an agent of Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, and subsequently, was sentenced in Poland to 10 years in prison for his anti-state activities (incarcerated between 1933–1938). The pro-Soviet Communist Party of Poland was dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1938. Bierut was fortunate to avoid being caught in the Great Purge, which led to the execution of most of the leaders of the Communist Party of Poland in the USSR. After an amnesty from the Polish government in 1938 Bierut settled down in Warsaw and worked as a bookkeeper in a cooperative.
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Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин; IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] ( listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was the President of Russia, serving from 1991 to 1999.
Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union. He won 57% of the vote in a six-candidate contest and became the second democratically elected leader of Russia in history. Upon the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, Yeltsin remained in office as the President of the Russian Federation, the USSR's successor state. Yeltsin was reelected in the 1996 election; in the second round of the election Yeltsin defeated Gennady Zyuganov from the revived Communist Party by a margin of 13%. However, Yeltsin never recovered his early popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s.
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Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, PC CC GOQ (born March 20, 1939) was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the Goods and Services Tax, and the rejection of constitutional reforms such as the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord. Prior to his political career, he was a prominent lawyer and businessman in Montreal.
Mulroney was born on March 20, 1939, in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, a remote and isolated town in the eastern part of the province. He is the son of Irish Canadian Catholic parents, Mary Irene (née O'Shea) and Benedict Martin Mulroney, who was a paper mill electrician. Six of the couple's children survived infancy. As there was no English-language Catholic high school in Baie-Comeau, Mulroney completed his high school education at a Roman Catholic boarding school in Chatham, New Brunswick operated by St. Thomas University (in 2001, St. Thomas University named its newest academic building in his honour). Benedict Mulroney worked overtime and ran a repair business to earn extra money for his children's education, and he encouraged his oldest son to attend university.
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Cai Hesen
Cai Hesen (Chinese: 蔡和森; pinyin: Cài Hésēn) (March 30, 1895 - August 4, 1931) was an early leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and a friend and comrade-in-arms of Mao Zedong. His courtesy name was Run Huan (润寰), and he was also known as He Xian (和仙), Zhe Ying (泽膺), and Lin Bin (林彬). Cai was originally from Shuangfeng County in Hunan Province.
Cai was born in Shanghai on March 30, 1895.In the spring of 1899, Cai came back to his hometown Shuangfeng County with his mother. In his youth, he studied at Hunan First Normal School and at the Higher Normal School in Changsha(长沙). Cai studied under Yang Changji, and joined student movements.In June 1917, after he graduated, Cai didn't return home, he took an active part in revolutionary activities. In April 1918, he organized the Xin Min Xue Hui (New People's Study Society) with Mao Zedong and others， which caused strong influence in the youth of Hunan province. Cai participated in a number of labor movements after this. In 1919 Christmas, he traveled to France with his mother Ge Jianhao(葛健豪), his sister Cai Chang(蔡畅), and his girlfriend Xiang Jingyu(向警予). In Paris, Cai organized an "Work and Study Cooperative Society" (Gongxue huzhu she)and accepted communism. He studied hard in France, refused to lessen his workload, and translated foreign works into Chinese.In May 1920, Cai married Xiang Jingyu.
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Cambodian Civil War
The Cambodian Civil War was a conflict that pitted the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (known as the Khmer Rouge) and their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong against the government forces of Cambodia (after October 1970, the Khmer Republic), which were supported by the United States (U.S.) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).
The struggle was exacerbated by the influence and actions of the allies of the two warring sides. People's Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese Army) involvement was designed to protect its Base Areas and sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia, without which the prosecution of its military effort in South Vietnam would have been more difficult. Then following the Cambodian coup of 1970, the North Vietnamese Army's attempt to overrun the entire country in March–April 1970 plunged Cambodia into civil war. The U.S. was motivated by the need to buy time for its withdrawal from Southeast Asia and to protect its ally, the South Vietnamese regime. American and both South and North Vietnamese forces directly participated (at one time or another) in the fighting. The central government was mainly assisted by the application of massive U.S. aerial bombing campaigns and direct material and financial aid.
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Caspar Weinberger
Caspar Willard "Cap" Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006), was an American politician and businessman. He served in a variety of prominent state and federal positions for three decades, most prominently as Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Born in San Francisco, California, Weinberger served in the 41st Infantry Division in the Pacific theater of World War II. His entry into politics was as a California State Assemblyman from 1953 to 1959, and he would go on to serve as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. An accomplished private sector businessman, he later became vice president and general counsel of Bechtel Corporation, and still later Chairman of Forbes.
His tenure as Secretary of Defense is the third longest in U.S. history, and spanned the final years of the Cold War. He is also known for his key role in the administration's Strategic Defense Initiative and later indictments in the Iran-Contra affair. He was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987 and an honorary British knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.
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Charles Bettelheim
Charles Bettelheim (November 20, 1913, Paris - July 20, 2006, Paris) was a French economist and historian, founder of the Center for the Study of Modes of Industrialization (CEMI : Centre pour l'Étude des Modes d'Industrialisation) at the Sorbonne), economic advisor to the governments of several developing countries during the period of decolonization. He was very influential in France's New Left, and considered one of "the most visible Marxists in the capitalist world" (Le Monde, April 4, 1972), in France as well as in Spain, Italy, Latin America, and India.
Henri Bettelheim, the father of Charles Bettelheim, was a Viennese Austrian of Jewish origin, and a representative of a Swiss bank in Paris. The family had to leave France after the beginning of the First World War in 1914. The Bettelheims lived in Switzerland then in Egypt. In 1922, Charles Bettelheim returned to Paris with his French mother, during which time his father, who was living in Egypt, committed suicide.
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Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; French: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen); 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.
He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. As the war progressed de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime. Despite earning a reputation for being a difficult man to do business with, by the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile, but although he insisted that France be treated as a great independent power by the other Allies, the Americans in particular remained deeply suspicious of his motives. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.
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Charu Majumdar
Charu Majumdar (Bengali: চারু মজুমদার; 1918–1972) was a communist revolutionary from India. Charu Majumdar's life is a story of "riches to rags". Born in a progressive landlord family in Siliguri in 1918, he later joined the militant Naxalite cause. He also authored the historic 1968 Naxalbari uprising, the ideology behind which guides red radicals even today.
He was born in 1918 at Siliguri, West Bengal. His father was a freedom fighter. Majumdar dropped out of college in 1938. In 1946, he joined the Tebhaga movement. He was briefly imprisoned in 1962.
Dropping out of college in 1937-38 he joined Congress and tried to organise bidi workers. He later crossed over to CPI to work in its peasant front. Soon an arrest-warrant forced him to go underground for the first time as a Left activist. Although CPI was banned at the outbreak of World War II, he continued CPI activities among peasants and was made a member of CPI Jalpaiguri district committee in 1942. The promotion emboldened him to organise a 'seizure of crops' campaign in Jalpaiguri during the Great Famine of 1943, more or less successfully. In 1946, he joined Tebhaga movement and embarked on a proletariat militant struggle in North Bengal. The stir shaped his vision of a revolutionary struggle. Later he worked among tea garden workers in Darjeeling.
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Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa]; June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.
As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was radically transformed by the endemic poverty and alienation he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region's ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.
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Chen Boda
Chen Boda (simplified Chinese: 陈伯达; traditional Chinese: 陳伯達; pinyin: Chén Bódá) was born in 1904 in Hui'an (Fujian province, China) and died on 20 September 1989 in Beijing.
He was a member of the Chinese Communist Party, a secretary to Mao Zedong and a prominent member of the leadership during the Cultural Revolution, chairing the Cultural Revolution Group.
Chen Boda was born Chen Shangyu in 1904 to peasant parents. During his childhood, his family moved to Jimei, likely to facilitate young Chen's enrollment at the Jimei Normal School. In 1925, Chen enrolled at Shanghai Labor University, and in 1927 he joined the Communist Party of China. After returning to Fujian, he was hired as the personal secretary of General Zhang Zhen, helping to prepare for the 1926–1927 Northern Expedition from the CCP side of the First United Front. When the Front collapsed, Chen fled and was eventually arrested in Nanjing. He was released after a month on General Zhang's recommendation. Shortly thereafter, Chen was selected to study at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow for four years.
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Chen Duxiu
Chen Duxiu (simplified Chinese: 陈独秀; traditional Chinese: 陳獨秀; pinyin: Chén Dúxiù; October 8, 1879 – May 27, 1942) played many different roles in Chinese history. He was a leading figure in the anti-imperial Xinhai Revolution and the May Fourth Movement for Science and Democracy. Along with Li Dazhao, Chen was a co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. He was its first General Secretary. Chen was an educator, philosopher, and politician. His ancestral home was in Anqing (安慶), Anhui, where he established the influential vernacular Chinese periodical La Jeunesse.
Chen Duxiu was born in the city of Anqing (安慶), in Anhui (安徽) province. He was born to a wealthy family of officials, the youngest of four children. In his youth, he was described as volatile, emotional, intuitive, non-intellectual, and a defender of the underdog. His father died when Chen was two years old, and he was raised primarily by his grandfather; and, later, by his older brother.
Chen was given a traditional Confucian education by his grandfather, several private tutors, and his elder brother. A thorough knowledge of Confucian literary and philosophical works was the pre-requisites for civil service in Imperial China. Chen was an exceptional student, but this poor experiences taking the Confucian civil service exams resulted in a lifelong tendency to advocate unconventional beliefs and to criticize traditional ideas.
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Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was also the first person to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister, under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before leading the Labour Party to a landslide election victory over Churchill's Conservative Party in 1945. He was the first Labour Prime Minister to serve a full Parliamentary term, and the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament.
The government he led put in place the post-war settlement, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies, and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created – aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of major industries and public utilities as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition to Keynesian fiscal policy, this settlement was broadly accepted by all parties until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979.
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Congo Crisis
The Congo Crisis (1960–1966) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu. At various points, it had the characteristics of anti-colonial struggle, a secessionist war with the province of Katanga, a United Nations peacekeeping operation, and a Cold War proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Crisis resulted in the deaths of some 100,000 people (King Léopold II’s rule had resulted in the deaths of around 10,000,000 Congolese people). It led to the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, as well as a traumatic setback to the United Nations following the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash as he sought to mediate.
Prior to the establishment of the First Republic in 1960, the native Congolese elites had formed semi-political organizations which gradually evolved into the main parties striving for independence. These organizations were formed on one of three foundations: ethnic kinship, connections formed in schools, and urban intellectualism[citation needed].
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Corazon Aquino
Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) was the 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office. She led the 1986 People Power Revolution, which toppled Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines. She was named "Woman of the Year" in 1986 by Time Magazine.
A self-proclaimed "plain housewife", Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., the staunchest critic of then President Ferdinand Marcos. Senator Aquino was assassinated on August 21, 1983 upon returning to the Philippines after three years in exile in the United States. After her husband's assassination, Corazon Aquino emerged as the leader of the opposition against the Marcos administration. In late 1985, when President Marcos called for a snap election, Aquino ran for president with former senator Salvador Laurel as her vice-presidential running mate. After the elections were held on February 7, 1986, and the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos the winner in the elections, she called for massive civil disobedience protests, declaring herself as having been cheated and as the real winner in the elections. Filipinos enthusiastically heeded her call and rallied behind her. These events eventually led to the ousting of Marcos and the installation of Aquino as President of the Philippines on February 25, 1986 through the "People Power Revolution".
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Daniel Ortega
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (Spanish pronunciation: [xo̞ˈse̞ ðaˈnje̞l o̞rˈte̞ɣa saˈβe̞ðɾa]; born 11 November 1945) is a Nicaraguan politician. He is the current President of Nicaragua (since 2007), a position he has held previously between 1985 and 1990. A leader in the socialist Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN), his policies in government have seen the implementation of leftist reforms across Nicaragua.
Born into a working class family, from an early age Ortega developed a hatred of the ruling President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who was widely seen as a dictator, and became involved in the underground movement to oppose Somoza's regime. Joining the Sandinistas, he also travelled to Cuba to receive training in guerilla warfare from Fidel Castro's Marxist-Leninist government. After the Nicaraguan Revolution resulted in the overthrow and exile of the Somoza's government in 1979, Ortega became a member of the ruling multipartisan Junta of National Reconstruction and was later elected president, serving from 1985 to 1990. At the time a Marxist-Leninist, his first period in office was characterized by a controversial program of land reform, wealth redistribution and literacy programs. Such leftist reforms damaged U.S. economic interests in the country, gaining hostility from the U.S.'s governing Reagan administration, who funded a right wing militia, the Contras, to overthrow Ortega's government.
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Deng Fa
Deng Fa (simplified Chinese: 邓发; traditional Chinese: 鄧發; Mandarin Pinyin: Dèng Fā; Jyutping: Dang6 Faat3) (March 7, 1906 – August 4, 1946) was a Chinese Communist politician who was the fifth president of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the highest training center for party workers and leaders. Deng served as principal from 1939 to 1942.
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Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (IPA: [tə̂ŋ ɕjɑ̀ʊpʰǐŋ] ( listen); 22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (historically the highest position in Communist China), he nonetheless served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1992. As the core of the second generation leaders Deng shared his power with the two most powerful men after him: Li Xiannian and Chen Yun.
Born into a peasant background in Guang'an, Sichuan, China, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s, where he was influenced by Marxism. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. Upon his return to China he worked as a political commissar in rural regions and was considered a "revolutionary veteran" of the Long March. Following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet and other southwestern regions to consolidate Communist control. He was also instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s. His economic policies were at odds with the political ideologies of Chairman Mao Zedong. As a result, he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution but regained prominence in 1978 by outmaneuvering Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.
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Deng Yingchao
Deng Yingchao (simplified Chinese: 邓颖超; traditional Chinese: 鄧穎超; pinyin: Dèng Yǐngchāo) (February 4, 1904 - July 11, 1992), was the wife of the first Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, Chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1983 to 1988 and a member of the Communist Party of China.
With ancestry in Guangshan County (光山縣), Henan, she was born Deng Wenshu (鄧文淑) in Nanning, Guangxi. Growing up in the poverty-stricken family, her father died when she was at a young age and her single mother taught and practiced medicine. Deng participated as a team leader in the May Fourth Movement, where she met Zhou Enlai. They married on August 8, 1925 in Tianjin.
Deng and Zhou had no children of their own. However, they adopted several orphans of "revolutionary martyrs", including Li Peng, later a Premier of the People's Republic of China. She promoted the abolition of foot binding imposed on women.
She died in Beijing of illness at the age of 88.
There is a memorial hall dedicated to her and her husband in Tianjin (天津周恩來鄧穎超紀念館).
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Ding Ling
Dīng Líng (丁玲) was the pseudonym of Jiǎng Bīngzhī (蒋冰之), also known as Bīn Zhǐ (彬芷) (October 12, 1904 - March 4, 1986), a Chinese woman author from Linli (临澧) in Hunan province. She was awarded the Soviet Union's Stalin second prize for Literature in 1951.
Ding Ling was born into a gentry family in Hunan province. Her father's health was poor, and he died when Ding was three. Ding Ling's mother, who raised her children alone while becoming an educator, was Ding's role model, and she would later write an unfinished novel, titled Mother, which described her mother's experiences. Following her mother's example, Ding Ling became an activist at an early age. Ding Ling early repudiated traditional Chinese family practices by refusing to marry her cousin who had been chosen to become her husband. She rejected the commonly accepted view that parents as the source of the child's body are its owners, and she ardently asserted that she owned and controlled her own body. Although she never joined the Chinese Communist Party, in 1932, the year after her 'Boyfriend', Hu Yepin, an impoverished worker, poet and Communist activist, had been executed in jail by the Kuomintang, she became heavily involved with them, and almost all of her fiction after this time was in support of its goalsCh 16: Interviewing Ding Ling, in Charls J. Alber “Embracing the lie: Ding Ling and the Politics of Literature in the People’s Republic of China” Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 2004. By then, Ding Ling had become well known as the author of Miss Sophia's Diary (莎菲女士的日記, Shāfēi Nüshì de Rìjì), published in 1927, in which a young woman describes her unhappiness with her life and confused romantic and sexual feelings.
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Diosdado Macapagal
Diosdado Pangan Macapagal (September 28, 1910 – April 21, 1997) was the ninth President of the Philippines, serving from 1961 to 1965, and the sixth Vice President, serving from 1957 to 1961. He also served as a member of the House of Representatives, and headed the Constitutional Convention of 1970. He is the father of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who served as the 14th President of the Philippines from 2001 to 2010.
A native of Lubao, Pampanga, Macapagal graduated from the University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas, after which he worked as a lawyer for the government. He first won election in 1949 to the House of Representatives, representing a district in his home province of Pampanga. In 1957 he became vice president in the administration of President Carlos P. Garcia, and in 1961 he defeated Garcia's re-election bid for the presidency.
As president, Macapagal worked to suppress graft and corruption and to stimulate the Philippine economy. He introduced the country's first land reform law, placed the peso on the free currency exchange market, and liberalized foreign exchange and import controls. Many of his reforms, however, were crippled by a Congress dominated by the rival Nacionalista Party. He is also known for shifting the country's observance of Independence Day from July 4 to June 12, commemorating the day Filipino patriots declared independence from Spain in 1898. His re-election bid was defeated in 1965 by Ferdinand Marcos, whose subsequent authoritarian rule lasted 20 years.
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Dong Biwu
Dong Biwu
(5 March 1886 – 2 April 1975) was a Chinese communist political leader during the regime of Mao Zedong.
Dong Biwu was born in Huanggang, Hubei. He was the President (Chairman of the Executive Committee) of China from 1948 to 1949 and Acting President from 1968 until 17 January 1975 when Zhu De became the succeeding Chairman of the Standing Committee of the People's National Congress (formal Head of State). He was also Vice-President of the People's Republic of China from 1959 until 1975, jointly with Soong Ching-ling. In 1975 he was elected Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee of People's National Congress (Parliament).
Dong was a member of Politburo of the Communist Party of China from 1945 to 1975. He was elected one of nine members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo at 10th Congress of the Communist Party in 1973.
He died just a year before Mao and several other important politicians like Zhou Enlai and Zhu De.
In 1991, a statue of Dong Biwu was erected in one of Wuhan's central squares, Hongshan Guangchang. Hubei Provincial museum houses a collection of Dong's personal items.
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Du Fu
Du Fu (Chinese: 杜甫; pinyin: Dù Fǔ; Wade–Giles: Tu Fu; 712–770) was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Along with Li Bai (Li Bo), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest.
Although initially he was little-known to other writers, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese literary culture. Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages. He has been called the "Poet-Historian" and the "Poet-Sage" by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire".
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Eduard Shevardnadze
Eduard Shevardnadze (Georgian: ედუარდ შევარდნაძე [ɛduard ʃɛvardnad͡zɛ]; born 25 January 1928) is a former Soviet, and later, Georgian statesman from the height to the end of the Cold War. He served as President of Georgia from 1995 to 2003, and as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party (GPC, the de facto leader of Soviet Georgia), from 1972 to 1985. Shevardnadze was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy in the Gorbachev Era. He was forced to retire in 2003 as a consequence of the bloodless Rose Revolution.
Shevardnadze's political career started in the late 1940s as a leading member of his local Komsomol organisation. He was later appointed its Second Secretary, and even First Secretary. His rise up the Georgian Soviet hierarchy continued until 1961 when he was demoted after he insulted a senior official. After spending two years in obscurity, Shevardnadze's returned as a First Secretary of a Tbilisi city district, and was able to charge the Tbilisi First Secretary at the time for corruption. His anti-corruption work quickly garnered the interest of the Soviet government, and Shevardnadze was appointed to First Deputy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. He would later become the head of the internal affairs ministry and was able to charge First Secretary (leader of Soviet Georgia) Vasil Mzhavanadze for corruption charges.
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Edward Gierek
Edward Gierek (Polish pronunciation: [ˈɛdvart ˈɡʲɛrɛk]; January 6, 1913 – July 29, 2001) was a Polish communist politician.
He was born in Porąbka, outside of Sosnowiec. He lost his father to a mining accident in a pit at the age of four. His mother married again and emigrated to northern France, where he was raised. He joined the French Communist Party in 1931 and was later deported to Poland for organizing a strike. After his military service in Stryj, Galicia, Gierek went to Belgium in 1934, where he joined the Communist Party of Belgium while working in the coal mines of Waterschei. During World War II, he remained activist of the Communist Party of Belgium. He returned to Poland in 1948 and rose through the party ranks to become by 1957 a member of the Polish parliament. As first secretary of the Katowice voivodship party organization (1957–70), Gierek created a personal power base and became the recognized leader of the young technocrat faction of the party. When rioting over economic conditions broke out in late 1970, Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as party first secretary. Gierek promised economic reform and instituted a program to modernize industry and increase the availability of consumer goods, doing so mostly through foreign loans. His good relations with Western politicians, especially France's Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Helmut Schmidt, were a catalyst for his receiving western aid and loans.
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Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–74) and as Leader of the Conservative Party (1965–75).
Born in Broadstairs, Kent, Heath studied at Oxford and served in the Second World War. He was first elected in the 1950 general election, for Bexley and was government Chief Whip during the 1950s. Entering the Cabinet as Minister of Labour in 1959, he was then Lord Privy Seal responsible for Macmillan's unsuccessful EEC entry negotiations, then President of the Board of Trade. In 1965 Heath won the leadership of the Conservative Party against Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell. The general election of 1966 saw the Labour government of Harold Wilson achieve a large increase in seats, however Heath remained Conservative leader.
Heath became Prime Minister after winning the 1970 general election. In 1971, Heath oversaw the decimalisation of British coinage and in 1972, he implemented major reform to the UK's system of local government. In foreign policy, Heath took the UK into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Heath's premiership oversaw the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, with the suspension of the Stormont parliament and the imposition of direct British rule. Unofficial talks with IRA delegates were unsuccessful, as was the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, which caused Ulster Unionists to withdraw from the Conservative whip.
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Eisaku Satō
This article is about the Prime Minister of Japan. For the governor of Fukushima Prefecture of Japan of the same name, see Eisaku Satō (governor).
Eisaku Satō (佐藤 榮作, Satō Eisaku?, March 27, 1901 – June 3, 1975) was a Japanese politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Japan, elected on November 9, 1964, and re-elected on February 17, 1967, and January 14, 1970, serving until July 7, 1972. He was the longest serving prime minister in the history of Japan.
Satō was born in Tabuse, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and studied German law at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1923, he passed the senior civil service examinations, and in the following year, upon graduation, became a civil servant in the Ministry of Railways. He served as Director of the Osaka Railways Bureau from 1944 to 1946 and Vice-Minister for Transportation from 1947 to 1948.
Satō entered the Diet in 1949 as a member of the Liberal Party.
He was appointed Minister of Postal Services and Telecommunications from July 1951 - July 1952. Sato gradually rose through the ranks of Japanese politics, becoming Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida from January 1953 to July 1954. He later served as Minister of Construction from October 1952-February 1953.
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Enrico Berlinguer
Enrico Berlinguer (Italian pronunciation: [berliŋˈɡwɛr]) (25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano or PCI) from 1972 until his death.
The son of Mario Berlinguer and Maria Loriga, Enrico Berlinguer was born in Sassari, Italy to a noble and important Sardinian family, in a notable cultural context, with family ties and political contacts that would heavily influence his life and career. His surname 'Berlinguer' is of Catalan origin, a reminder of the period when Sardinia was part of the dominions of the Crown of Aragon.
He was a cousin of Francesco Cossiga (who was a leader of the Italian Christian Democrats and later became a President of the Italian Republic), and both were relatives of Antonio Segni, another Christian Democrat leader and President of the Republic. Enrico's grandfather, Enrico Berlinguer Sr., was the founder of La Nuova Sardegna, an important Sardinian newspaper, and a personal friend of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he had helped in his attempts through his parliamentary work to improve the sad conditions on the island.
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Enver Hoxha
Enver Hoxha ( pronunciation (help·info); 16 October 1908 – 11 April 1985) was the leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He also served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of the Democratic Front from 1945 to his death, and as Commander-in-Chief of the Albanian armed forces from 1944 to his death. Hoxha's leadership was characterized by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism from the mid-1970s onwards. After his break with Maoism in the 1976–1978 period, numerous Maoist parties declared themselves Hoxhaist. The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) is the most well known collection of these parties today.
Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër, a city in southern Albania (then under the Ottoman Empire) that has been home to many prominent families. He was the son of Halil Hoxha, a BektashiTosk cloth merchant who travelled widely across Europe and the United States of America, and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha. At age 16 he helped found and became secretary of the Students Society of Gjirokastër, which protested against the monarchist government. After the Society was closed down by the government, he left his hometown and moved to Korçë, continuing his studies in a French secondary school. There he learned French history, literature and philosophy. In this city he read for the first time the Communist Manifesto.
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Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker (German: [ˈeːʁɪç ˈhɔnɛkɐ]; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German socialist politician who led the German Democratic Republic as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until 1989, serving as Head of State as well after Willi Stoph's relinquishment of that post in 1976.
Following the definite end of the Cold War, Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes and was ousted by the party in late 1989 and removed from power. Following the German reunification he successfully evaded prosecution for human rights abuses committed under his regime, finally settling down with his family in Chile in 1993, dying the following year from liver cancer.
Honecker was born on Max-Braun-Straße in Neunkirchen, now Saarland, as the son of Wilhelm Honecker, a coal miner and political activist, who in 1905 had married Caroline Catharina Weidenhof. There were six children born to the family: Katharina (Käthe), Wilhelm (Willi), Frieda, Erich, Gertrud (b. 1917; m. Hoppstädter), and Karl-Robert.
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Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He co-founded and served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government he supported the creation of NATO.
Bevin was born in the village of Winsford in Somerset, England, to Diana Bevin who, since 1877, had described herself as a widow. His father is unknown. After his mother's death in 1889, the young Bevin lived with his half-sister's family, moving to Morchard Bishop in Devon. He had little formal education, having briefly attended two village schools and then Hayward's School, Crediton, starting in 1890 and leaving in 1892. He later recalled being asked as a child to read the newspaper aloud for the benefit of adults in his family who were illiterate. At the age of eleven, he went to work as a labourer, then as a lorry driver in Bristol, where he joined the Bristol Socialist Society. In 1910 he became secretary of the Bristol branch of the Dockers' Union, and in 1914 he became a national organiser for the union.
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Faiz Ahmad
Dr. Faiz Ahmad (1946 – November 12, 1986) (Persian: داکتر فیض احمد) was the founding leader of the Afghanistan Liberation Organization (ALO), a Marxist-Leninist organization established in Kabul.
Ahmad was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He attended primary and secondary schools in Kandahar before coming to Kabul to enter Naderia High School where he became involved in the far-left movement after reading some works of Marx and Lenin.
Akram Yari, a leader of the Maoist movement in Afghanistan, was Ahmad's teacher in Naderia High School; he deeply influenced Ahmad. [1] Yari was leader of Progressive Youth Organization (PYO), a Maoist organization which was formed on October 6, 1965. Later, Ahmad broke with PYO and formed the Revolutionary Group of People of Afghanistan.
After graduating from high school, Ahmad entered the Medical Faculty of Kabul University. It was in those years that he established the Revolutionary Group of People of Afghanistan which was later named Afghanistan Liberation Organization (ALO).
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Felipe González
Felipe González Márquez (born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish socialist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996.
Felipe was born in Seville, son of a farmer who had a small dairy. He has a sister named Lola González y Márquez, married to Francisco Germán Palomino y Romera, by whom she has two sons, Felipe and Germán Palomino y González. He studied Law at Seville University and started his career as attorney specialising in labour. While at the University he met members of the socialist trade union Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) that was clandestine at the time. He also contacted members of the PSOE and started taking part in the party's clandestine activity. During that time he adopted the nom de guerre Isidoro and moved to Madrid. He was elected Secretary General of the Party at the Suresnes Congress, in France.
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Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician who held the title of President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949–1959) and a member of the Philippine Senate (1959–1965). He was Senate President from 1963–1965.
While in power he implemented wide-ranging programs of infrastructure development and economic reform. However, his administration was marred by massive authoritarian corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression, and human rights violations.
In 1983, his government was accused of being involved in the assassination of his primary political opponent, Benigno Aquino, Jr. Public outrage over the assassination served as the catalyst for the People Power Revolution in February 1986 that led to his removal from power and eventual exile in Hawaii. It was later discovered that, during his 20 years in power, he and his wife Imelda Marcos had moved billions of dollars of embezzled public funds to accounts and investments in the United States, Switzerland, and other countries.
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Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Spanish: [fiˈðel ˈkastro]; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba was converted into a one-party socialist state, with industry and business being nationalized under state ownership and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society. On the international stage, he also served as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and 2006 to 2008.
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Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga (26 July 1928 – 17 August 2010) was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari.
Cossiga was born in Sassari in the north of Sardinia. He started his political career during World War II. His name is now usually pronounced Italian pronunciation: [kosˈsiːɡa], but it was originally pronounced Italian pronunciation: [ˈkɔssiɡa], with the stress on the first syllable, meaning "Corsica". He was the cousin of Enrico Berlinguer.
He was a minister several times for the Democrazia Cristiana party (DC), notably during his stay at Viminale (Ministry for internal affairs) where he re-structured the Italian police, civil protection and secret services. In 1977, when Cossiga was minister of internal affairs, police squads organized by Cossiga shot against a demonstration in Rome, killing student Giorgiana Masi. Cossiga for many years stated that she was killed by her companions.
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Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, better known under the name of Franco, (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general, dictator and the leader of the Nationalist military rebellion in the Spanish Civil War, and totalitarian head of state of Spain, from October 1936 (as a unified nation from 1939 onwards) until his death in November 1975. He came to power while recognizing the principles of the far-right Falange movement, although this was for propaganda reasons, as he belonged to no political party before becoming Head of State. As head of state, Franco used the titles Caudillo de España and Generalísimo, but also was called formally as His Excellency, The Head of State.
Franco was from a military family, and although originally intent on entering the Spanish Navy, he instead became a soldier. He participated in the Rif War in Morocco, becoming the youngest general in Europe by 1926. After returning to the Spanish mainland, he saw service suppressing an anarchist-led strike in 1934, defending the stability of Alcalá-Zamora's conservative government. Following the formation of a Popular Front government, made up of various left-wing factions, instability heightened. Violence between militant groups rose sharply with assassination of conservative parliamentary leader José Calvo Sotelo, in retaliation for the killing of José Castillo. Franco and his co-conspirators used Calvo's death as their pretext for war, as they had already initiated the plan for their rebellion.
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Frank Dikötter
Frank Dikötter (English pronunciation: /diːˈkʌtər/) is a Dutch historian and author of Mao's Great Famine. The book won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize. Dikötter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches courses on both Mao and the Great Chinese Famine, and Professor of the Modern History of China from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
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François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (French: [fʁɑ̃swa mɔʁis mitɛˈʁɑ̃] ( listen); 26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the first figure from the left elected President under the Fifth Republic.
Reflecting family influences, Mitterrand started political life on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under the Vichy Regime in its earlier years. Subsequently, however, he joined the Resistance, moved to the left, and held ministerial office repeatedly under the Fourth Republic. He opposed de Gaulle's establishment of the Fifth Republic. Although at times a politically isolated figure, Mitterrand outmanoeuvred rivals to become the left's standard bearer in every presidential election from 1965 to 1988, except 1969. Elected President in the May 1981 presidential election, he was re-elected in 1988 and held office until 1995.
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Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (Arabic: جمال عبد الناصر حسين, IPA: [ɡæˈmæːl ʕæbdenˈnɑːsˤeɾ ħeˈseːn]; 15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of modernization, and socialist reform in Egypt together with a profound advancement of pan-Arab nationalism, including a short-lived union with Syria.
Nasser is seen as one of the most important political figures in both modern Arab history and politics in the 20th century. Under his leadership, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company and came to play a central role in anti-imperialist efforts in the Arab World and Africa. The imposed ending to the Suez Crisis made him a hero throughout the Arab world. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the international Non-Aligned Movement. He is well known for his nationalist policies and version of pan-Arabism, also referred to as Nasserism, which won a great following in the Arab World during the 1950s and 1960s. Although his status as "leader of the Arabs" was badly damaged by the Israeli victory over the Arab armies in the Six-Day War, as well as Egypt's failure to win the subsequent War of Attrition against Israel, many in the general Arab population still view Nasser as a symbol of Arab dignity and freedom.
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Gang of Four
The Gang of Four (simplified Chinese: 四人帮; traditional Chinese: 四人幫; pinyin: Sìrén bàng) was the name given to a political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and were subsequently charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The members consisted of Mao Zedong's last wife Jiang Qing, the leading figure of the group, and her close associates Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen.
The Gang of Four effectively controlled the power organs of the Communist Party of China through the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution, although it remains unclear which major decisions were made through Mao Zedong and carried out by the Gang, and which were the result of the Gang of Four's own planning.
The Gang of Four, together with disgraced Communist general Lin Biao, were labeled the two major "counter-revolutionary forces" of the Cultural Revolution and officially blamed by the Chinese government for the worst excesses of the societal chaos that ensued during the ten years of turmoil. Their downfall in a coup d'état on October 6, 1976, a mere month after Mao's death, brought about major celebrations on the streets of Beijing and marked the end of a turbulent political era in China.
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Gennady Yanayev
Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev (Russian: Генна́дий Ива́нович Яна́ев; 26 August 1937 – 24 September 2010) was a Soviet Russian politician and statesman whose career spanned the rules of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, and culminated during the Gorbachev years. Yanayev was born in Perevoz, Gorky Oblast. After years in local politics, he rose to prominence as Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, but he also held other lesser posts such as deputy of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
Due to his chairmanship of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions he gained a seat in the Politburo. During the 1990 July plenum he was elected to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee. Later that year, with the help of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yanayev was elected the first, and only, Vice President of the Soviet Union. Having growing doubts about where Gorbachev's reforms were leading, Yanayev started working with, and eventually leading, the Gang of Eight, the group which deposed Gorbachev during the August coup of 1991. After three days the coup collapsed due to the popularity of Boris Yeltsin, but during its brief grip of power Yanayev was made Acting President of the Soviet Union. He was then arrested for his role in the coup, but in 1994 he was pardoned by the State Duma. He spent the rest of his life working in the Russian tourism administration until his death on 24 September 2010.
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George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, Marshall served as the United States Army Chief of Staff during the war and as the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State, his name was given to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
George Catlett Marshall was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the son of George Catlett Marshall, Sr. and Laura Emily (Bradford) Marshall. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901.
Following graduation from VMI, Marshall was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Until World War I, he was posted to various positions in the US and the Philippines. He served as an infantry platoon leader and company commander in the Phillipines during the Phillipine-American War and several other guerilla uprisings. He was schooled and trained in modern warfare. His pre-war service included a tour at Fort Leavenworth, KS from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor.
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Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pɔ̃pidu]; 5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.
He was born in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France. After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended Senegalese future poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure with a degree of Agrégation in literature.
He first taught literature at the lycée Henri IV in Paris until hired in 1953 by Guy de Rothschild to work at Rothschild. In 1956, he was appointed the bank's general manager, a position he held until 1962. Later, he was hired by Charles de Gaulle to manage the Anne de Gaulle Foundation for Down's Syndrome (de Gaulle's daughter Anne had Down's Syndrome).
He served as prime minister under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 16 April 1962 to 21 July 1968, and to this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. His nomination was controversial because he was not a member of the National Assembly. In October 1962, he was defeated by a vote of non-confidence, but de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly. The Gaullists won the legislative election and Pompidou was reappointed as Prime Minister. In 1964, he was faced with a miners' strike. He led the 1967 legislative campaign of the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic to a narrow victory. Pompidou was widely regarded as being responsible for the peaceful resolution of the student uprising of May 1968. His strategy was to break the coalition of students and workers by negotiating with the trade-unions and employers (Grenelle conference). Until this crisis, he was the Prime Minister of a quiet and prosperous France.
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Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. As the first person appointed to the vice-presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment (after Spiro Agnew had resigned), when he became President upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, he became the only President of the United States who was never elected President nor Vice-President by the Electoral College. Before ascending to the vice-presidency, Ford served nearly 25 years as the Representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, eight of them as the Republican Minority Leader.
As President, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended. Domestically, Ford presided over arguably the weakest economy since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure. One of his more controversial acts was to grant a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. During Ford's incumbency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the President. In 1976, Ford narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but lost the presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
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Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒeˈtuliu doɾˈnɛlis ˈvaɾɡɐs]; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history only to Emperor Pedro II among heads of government. He favored nationalism, industrialization, centralization, social welfare and populism – for the latter, Vargas won the nickname "O Pai dos Pobres" (Portuguese for "The Father of the Poor"). Despite his promotion of workers' rights, Vargas was a staunch anti-communist.
Vargas was brought to power by political outsiders and the rank and file of the Armed Forces in the Revolution of 1930, a reaction to his loss in rigged elections earlier that year. His ascent marked the end of the Brazilian oligarchic Old Republic and states' dominated café com leite politics. He successfully influenced the outcome of the Brazilian presidential election of 1934, and instituted an authoritarian corporatist regime in 1937 known as the Estado Novo ("New State"), prolonging his hold onto power. Vargas went on to appease and eventually dominate his supporters, and pushed his political agenda as he built a propaganda machine around his figure.
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Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti (Italian pronunciation: [ˈʤuːljo andreˈɔtti]; born January 14, 1919) is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior (1954 and 1978), Defense Minister (1959–1966 and 1974) and Foreign Minister (1983–1989) and he has been a senator for life since 1991. He is also a journalist and author.
He is sometimes called Divo Giulio (from Latin Divus Iulius, "divine Julius", an epithet of Julius Caesar). The movie Il Divo tells about Andreotti's links with the Mafia and won the Prix du Jury at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Andreotti was born in Rome into a family from Segni. He studied law in Rome, during which time he was member of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI, or Italian Catholic University Federation), which was then the only Catholic university association allowed by the Fascist government. Its members included many of the future leaders of the Italian Democrazia Cristiana (or DC, the Christian Democracy party). In July 1939, while Aldo Moro was president of FUCI, Andreotti became director of its magazine Azione Fucina. In 1942, when Moro was enrolled in the Italian Army, Andreotti succeeded him as president of FUCI, a position he held until 1944.
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Gregorio Honasan
Gregorio Ballesteros Honasan II (born March 14, 1948), better known as Gringo Honasan, is a Filipino political figure. He played a key role in the 1986 EDSA Revolution that toppled the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. He led a series of coup attempts against the administration of Corazon Aquino. President Fidel Ramos granted him amnesty in 1992. He entered politics and became a senator from 1995 to 2004 and again since 2007.
Gregorio Honasan was born in Baguio City to Colonel Romeo Honasan and Alice Ballesteros, both from Sorsogon province. Honasan spent his elementary days at San Beda College from Kindergarten to Grade 6. After which, he went to Taiwan and studied at the Dominican School, Taipei, Taiwan. He then returned to the Philippines and finished his high school at Don Bosco Mandaluyong. He attained his Bachelor of Science degree at the Philippine Military Academy, where he received the title of "Class Baron", the academy's highest leadership award.
After graduating in 1971, he joined the Philippine Army and went into combat duty against separatist and communist insurgents in Luzon and Mindanao. He was wounded in action at battles in Lebak and Jolo. Making his way up through the armed forces, he became aide-de-camp to Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile in 1974, and later became the department's Chief of Security.
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Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin (1 August 1929 – 27 December 1979) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Amin was born in Paghman and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his career as a teacher. After a few years in that occupation, he went to the United States to study. He would visit the United States a second time before moving permanently to Afghanistan, and starting his career in radical politics. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 parliamentary election but failed to secure a seat. Amin was the only Khalqist elected to parliament in the 1969 parliamentary election, thus increasing his standing within the party. He was one of the leading organisers of the Saur Revolution which overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud Khan.
Amin's short-lived presidency was marked by controversies from beginning to end. He came to power by killing his predecessor Nur Muhammad Taraki. The revolt against communist rule which had begun under Taraki worsened under Amin, and was a problem that his government was unable to solve. The Soviet Union, which alleged that Amin was an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, intervened in Afghanistan on behalf of the Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Amin was assassinated by the Soviets in December 1979 as part of Operation Storm-333, having ruled for slightly longer than three months.
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Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC, FRS (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963.
Nicknamed 'Supermac' and known for his pragmatism, wit and unflappability, Macmillan achieved notoriety before the Second World War as a Tory radical and critic of appeasement. Rising to high office as a protégé of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he believed in the post-war settlement and the necessity of a mixed economy, and in his premiership pursued corporatist policies to develop the domestic market as the engine of growth. During his time as prime minister, average living standards steadily rose while numerous social reforms were carried out such as the 1956 Clean Air Act, the 1957 Housing Act, the 1960 Offices Act, the 1960 Noise Abatement Act, the Factories Act 1961, and the introduction of a graduated pension scheme to provide an additional income to retirees.
As a One Nation Tory of the Disraelian tradition, haunted by memories of the Great Depression, he championed a Keynesian strategy of public investment to maintain demand, winning a second term in 1959 with an increased majority on an electioneering budget. Benefiting from favourable international conditions, he presided over an age of affluence, marked by low unemployment and high if uneven growth. In his Bedford speech of July 1957 he told the nation they had 'never had it so good', but warned of the dangers of inflation, summing up the fragile prosperity of the 1950s.
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Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British Labour politician and Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the February 1974 general election resulted in a hung parliament. He is the most recent British Prime Minister to have served non-consecutive terms.
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He Zizhen
He Zizhen (September 1909 – April 19, 1984) was the third wife of Mao Zedong from May 1930 to 1937.
He Zizhen was born in Yunshan (云山, now Yongxin County), Jiangxi, during Qing Dynasty China, and joined the Communist Youth League in 1925. She graduated from the Yongxin Girls' School and joined the Communist Party of China in 1926. He Zizhen was introduced to Mao Zedong at Jinggangshan by Yuan Wencai, a classmate of her elder brother, in the spring of 1928. An expert in guerrilla warfare and a capable fighter, He Zizhen was also an excellent shooter whom earned the nickname of "Two-Gunned Girl General."
In 1937 she travelled to the Soviet Union to treat a wound sustained earlier in battle, later attending the Moscow East University.[citation needed]
He Zizhen had three daughters and three sons with Mao Zedong, but except for their daughter, Li Min, all of them died young or were separated from the family. Their eldest daughter, who was left to a local family in Fujian, was found and recognized by He Zizhen's brother in 1973, but never had the chance to meet Mao or He. Two English researchers who retraced the entire Long March in 2002–2003 located a woman who they believe might be a missing child left in the care of others by Mao and He in 1935.Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen hope a member of the Mao family will respond to requests for a DNA test.
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Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈkoːl]; born 3 April 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany between 1982 and 1990 and of the reunited Germany between 1990 and 1998) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck and oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Kohl is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the German reunification and, together with French President François Mitterrand, the Maastricht Treaty, which contributed to the creation of the European Union.
Kohl and Mitterrand were the joint recipients of the Karlspreis in 1988. In 1998, Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet. In 1996, he won the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation.
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Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmʊt ˈʃmɪt]; born 23 December 1918) is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. He is the oldest surviving German Chancellor and the last surviving person to have been solely Chancellor of West Germany (Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of both West Germany and reunified Germany). He is also the oldest living Federal German Minister, after the death of his Interior Minister Werner Maihofer.
Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg, as son of two teachers. He studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. He was conscripted into military service and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. After brief service on the Eastern Front he returned to Germany in 1942 to work as a trainer and advisor at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. Also in 1942, on 27 June, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore "Loki" Glaser (3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010), with whom he fathered two children: Helmut Walter (26 June 1944–February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne (b. 1947), who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the artillery on the Western Front. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath and was a prisoner of war until August. During his service in World War II Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross.
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Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger ( /ˈkɪsɪndʒər/; born May 27, 1923) is a German-born American writer, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought by many subsequent presidents and many world leaders.
A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. Various American policies of that era, including the bombing of Cambodia, remain controversial to many.
Kissinger is still a controversial figure today. He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.
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Hirohito
Hirohito (裕仁?), posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or the Shōwa Emperor (昭和天皇, Shōwa tennō?), (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to exclusively by his posthumous name Emperor Shōwa. The word Shōwa is the name of the era that corresponded with the Emperor's reign, and was made the Emperor's own name upon his death.
At the start of his reign, Japan was already one of the great powers—the ninth largest economy in the world after Italy, the third largest naval country, and one of the five permanent members of the council of the League of Nations. He was the head of state under the limitation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan during Japan's imperial expansion, militarization, and involvement in World War II. After the war, he was not prosecuted for war crimes as many other leading government figures were. During the postwar period, he became the symbol of the new state.
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Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô cǐ miɲ] (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô̤ tɕǐmɪŋ] ( listen)); 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Stalinist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.
He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause – a united, independent Vietnam – until his death. After the war, Saigon, the capital of Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor.
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Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao (Pinyin: Hú Jǐntāo, pronounced [xǔ tɕìntʰɑ́ʊ]; born 21 December 1942) is the current Paramount leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang Zemin as the chief of the fourth generation of leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Hu has been involved in the Communist party bureaucracy for most of his adult life, notably as Party secretary for Guizhou province and the Tibet Autonomous Region, and then later first Secretary of the CPC Secretariat and Vice-President under former leader Jiang Zemin. Hu is the first leader of the Communist Party without any significant revolutionary credentials. As such, his rise to the presidency represented China's transition of leadership from establishment communists to younger, more pragmatic technocrats.
During his term in office, Hu has reintroduced state control in some sectors of the economy that were relaxed by the previous administration, and has been conservative with political reforms. Along with his colleague, Premier Wen Jiabao, Hu presided over nearly a decade of consistent economic growth and development that cemented China as a major world power. He sought to improve socio-economic equality domestically through the Scientific Development Concept, which aimed to build a "Harmonious Society" that was prosperous and free of social conflict. Meanwhile, Hu kept a tight lid on China politically, cracking down on social disturbances, ethnic minority protests, and dissident figures. In foreign policy, Hu advocated for "China's peaceful development", pursuing soft power in international relations and a business-oriented approach to diplomacy. Through Hu's tenure, China's influence in Africa, Latin America, and other developing countries has increased.
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Hu Yaobang
Hu Yaobang (20 November 1915 – 15 April 1989) was a leader of the People's Republic of China who served as both Chairman and Party General Secretary. Hu joined the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s, and rose to prominence as a comrade of Deng Xiaoping. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), Hu was purged, recalled, and purged again, following the political career of Deng.
After Deng rose to power, following the death of Mao Zedong, Deng promoted Hu to a series of high political positions. Throughout the 1980s Hu pursued a series of economic and political reforms under the direction of Deng. Hu's political and economic reforms made him the enemy of several powerful Party elders, who opposed free market reforms and attempts to make China's government more transparent. When a series of widespread student protests occurred across China in 1987, Hu's political opponents successfully blamed Hu for the disruptions, claiming that Hu's "laxness" and "bourgeois liberalization" had either led to, or worsened, the protests. Hu was forced to resign as Party General Secretary, but was allowed to retain a seat in the Politburo.
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Hua Guofeng
Su Zhu (16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008), better known by the nom de guerre Hua Guofeng, was Mao Zedong's designated successor as the Paramount Leader of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China.
A regional official in Hunan between 1949 and 1971, he became the head of the party leadership in the province during the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution. Hua was elevated to the national stage in early 1976, and was known for his loyalty to Mao. Upon Zhou Enlai's death in January 1976, Hua succeeded Zhou as Premier of the People's Republic of China. After Mao's death, Hua took on the titles of Chairman of the Communist Party of China and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, to the surprise and dismay of Jiang Qing and the rest of the Gang of Four. Hua is the only leader to have simultaneously held the three highest offices of the PRC - leading the Party, State Council, and the Central Military Commission.
Hua brought the Cultural Revolution to an end and ousted the Gang of Four from political power by staging their arrests in Beijing. He attempted moderate reforms and reversing some of the excesses of Cultural Revolution-era policies. However, because of his insistence on continuing the Maoist line, he was himself outmaneuvered a few years later by Deng Xiaoping, a pragmatic reformer, who forced Hua into early retirement. As Hua faded into political obscurity, he continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles. He is remembered as a largely benign transitional figure in modern Chinese political history.
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İbrahim Kaypakkaya
İbrahim Kaypakkaya (1949 - May 18, 1973) was a leader of the Turkish communist movement. He was a former member of the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey. He later split from this party and established the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML.)
Following the military memorandum of 1971 the Turkish government cracked down on the communist movement in Turkey, and was successful in destroying the machinery of the TKP/ML. Kaypakkaya and several of his colleagues were arrested. Kaypakkaya died in prison in 1973 where he was tortured, and finally, shot in the head by his interrogator.
His doctrinal views were based on splitting away from the neighboring Soviet Union's ideology and taking up Maoism and supporting the Cultural Revolution. As such, Kaypakkaya's life was heavily shaped by the Sino-Soviet split.
Kaypakkaya also took the position that there is a national question involved with the Kurdish people.
Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist re-organized between 1973 and 1978. The first party congress took place in 1978 (TKP/ML I. Kongresi in Turkish). In 1981 the second congress was organized (TKP/ML II. Kongresi). The party split following the second congress, the splinter taking up the name Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey).
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Ichirō Hatoyama
Ichirō Hatoyama (鳩山 一郎, Hatoyama Ichirō?, January 1, 1883 – March 7, 1959) was a Japanese politician and the 52nd, 53rd and 54th Prime Minister of Japan, serving terms from December 10, 1954 through March 19, 1955, from then to November 22, 1955, and from then through December 23, 1956.
Ichirō Hatoyama was, as his name indicates, the firstborn boy. He was born into a wealthy cosmopolitan family in Tokyo. His father Kazuo Hatoyama (1856–1911) was a Yale graduate (and Speaker of the House of Representatives) and his mother Haruko Hatoyama (1863–1938) was a famous author and the founder of Kyoritsu Women's University.
Ichirō was a Master Mason and a Protestant Christian (Baptist). He was Japan's third postwar Christian Prime Minister.
Iichirō Hatoyama, Ichirō's only son, made a career for himself as a civil servant in the Budget Bureau of the Finance Ministry. Iichirō retired after having achieved the rank of administrative Vice Minister. In his second career in politics, he rose to become Foreign Minister of Japan in 1976–1977.
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Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada (c. 1924 – 16 August 2003) was the military dictator and third President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin joined the British colonial regiment, the King's African Rifles in 1946. Eventually he held the rank of Major General in the post-colonial Ugandan Army and became its Commander before seizing power in the military coup of January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. He later promoted himself to Field Marshal while he was the head of state. While serving in the British Regiment he toured Kenya.
Amin's rule was characterised by gross human rights abuse, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000. During his years in power, Amin shifted in allegiance from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi, the Soviet Union and East Germany.
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Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (January 13, 1919 – June 28, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. This forced Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Gouzenko exposed Joseph Stalin's efforts to steal nuclear secrets, and the technique of planting sleeper agents. The "Gouzenko Affair" is often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War.
Gouzenko was born to a Ukrainian family on January 26, 1919, in the village of Rogachevo not far from Moscow. At the start of World War II, he joined the military where he trained as a cipher clerk. In 1943, he was stationed in Ottawa, where for two years he enciphered outgoing messages and deciphered incoming messages for the GRU. His position gave him knowledge of Soviet espionage activities in the West.
In 1945, hearing that he and his family were to be sent home to the Soviet Union and dissatisfied with the quality of life and the politics of his homeland, he decided to defect. Gouzenko walked out of the embassy door carrying with him a briefcase with Soviet code books and deciphering materials. He initially went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but the RCMP officers on duty refused to believe his story. He then went to the Ottawa Journal newspaper, but the paper's night editor was not interested, and suggested he go to the Department of Justice – however nobody was on duty at night when he arrived. Terrified that the Soviets had discovered his duplicity, he went back to his apartment and hid his family in the apartment across the hall for the night. Gouzenko, hidden by a neighbour, watched through the keyhole as a group of Soviet agents broke into his apartment. They began searching through his belongings, and only left when confronted by Ottawa police.
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Imelda Marcos
Imelda R. Marcos (born Imelda Remedios Visitasion Romualdez on July 2, 1929) is a Filipino politician and widow of 10th Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to political power, she held various positions to the government until 1986. She is the first politician elected as member of the Philippine legislature in three geographical locations (Manila, Leyte, Ilocos Norte). In 2010, she was elected to become a member of the House of Representatives to represent Ilocos Norte's second district. She is sometimes referred to as the Steel Butterfly or the Iron Butterfly. She is often remembered for symbols of the extravagance of her husband's political reign, including her collection of 2,700 pairs of shoes.
Her paternal ancestors, the Lopezes of Leyte, were wealthy, landed and prominent, and claimed to have founded the town of Tolosa, Leyte. Spanish mestizos, the Lopezes were descended from the Spanish friar and silversmith Don Francisco Lopez, originally from Granada in the Andalusian region of Spain. Together with Fray Salustiano Buz, he arrived by way of Acapulco to build Roman Catholic missions in the island provinces of Samar and Leyte (Buz would establish his home base in Palapag, Samar, the exit-entry point of the Manila Galleons in the Visayas islands). It was common then for Spanish friars to take mistresses, and Lopez's life-long relationship with a Chinese mestiza, Maria Crisostomo y Talentin of Basey, Samar, produced seven children. The eldest of them was Trinidad Lopez, or Doña Tidad in later years.
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Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy (7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions. Nagy's second term ended when his non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, resulting in Nagy's execution on charges of treason two years later.
Nagy (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈnɒɟ]) was born in Kaposvár, to a peasant family and was apprenticed to a locksmith. He enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and served on the Eastern Front. He was taken prisoner in 1915. He became a member of the Russian Communist Party, and joined the Red Army.
Nagy returned to Hungary in 1921. In 1930 he travelled to the Soviet Union and joined the communist party. He was engaged in agricultural research, and also worked in the Hungarian section of the Comintern. He was expelled from the party in 1936 and later worked for the Soviet Statistical Service. Rumours that he was an agent of the Soviet secret service surfaced later, begun by Hungarian party-leader Károly Grósz in 1989 in an attempt to discredit Nagy. There is evidence, however, that Nagy did serve as an informant for the NKVD during his time in Moscow and provided names to the secret police as a way to prove his loyalty (not an uncommon tactic for foreign communists in the Soviet Union at the time).
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Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindi: इंदिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गांधी Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī listen (help·info), née Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). Gandhi was the second female head of government in the world after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, and she remains as the world's second longest serving female Prime Minister as of 2012. She was the first woman to become prime minister in India.
Gandhi was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. She adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development that had been begun by her father. Gandhi established closer relations with the Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared a state of emergency in order to 'rule by decree' and the only Indian Prime Minister to have been imprisoned after holding that office. She was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for ordering Operation Blue Star.
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Ion Mihai Pacepa
Ion Mihai Pacepa (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon miˈhaj paˈt͡ʃepa]; born 28 October 1928 in Bucharest, Romania) is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected, besides Iacob Eremie, from the former Eastern Bloc. He is now a United States citizen, a writer, and a columnist.
During July 1978, Pacepa was a three-star Romanian Securitate general who simultaneously had the rank of advisor to President Nicolae Ceauşescu, acting chief of his foreign intelligence service and a state secretary of Romania’s Ministry of Interior. He defected to the United States after President James Carter's approval of his request for political asylum.
Subsequently, he worked with American intelligence in various operations against the former Eastern Bloc. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) described his cooperation as "an important and unique contribution to the United States".
Pacepa studied industrial chemistry at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, but just months before graduation he was drafted by the Securitate, and got his engineering degree only four years later. Between 1957 and 1960 he served as chief of the Romanian intelligence station in West Germany, and, between 1972 and 1978, he was Ceauşescu's adviser for national security and technological development and the deputy chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service. He claims that during the 1960s he was involved with the establishment of a Romanian automobile industry. Romanian army colonel Titus Simon who directed the military intelligence bureau in West Germany during Pacepa's stint there alleged in his book "Quo Vadis Pacepa" that during those years Pacepa had been recruited by American intelligence.
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James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was a British Labour politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Commonly known as Jim Callaghan (and nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim"), Callaghan is the only person to have served in all four of the Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.
Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967 during a turbulent period in the British economy in which he had to wrestle with a balance of payments deficit and speculative attacks on the pound sterling. In November 1967, the Government was forced to devalue the pound sterling despite having already denied this would be done, both publicly and to the House of Commons. Callaghan offered to resign, but was persuaded to swap his ministerial post with Roy Jenkins, becoming Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970. In that capacity, Callaghan took the decision to use the Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government.
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Jasper Becker
Jasper Becker is an author, commentator and journalist who has spent two decades as a foreign correspondent in China.
In 1995, he joined the staff of the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. He was later promoted to the senior position of Beijing bureau chief, which meant he was in charge of all mainland context. In 2002, he lost his job, in an experience he writes about in a Washington Post column headlined "Why I Was Fired in Hong Kong."
Given his often critical views of China, his abrupt removal was considered by some to be a sign of deteriorating press freedoms in Hong Kong.Becker’s dismissal for “insubordination” was widely reported in the international media. He was sacked after commenting that the paper was restricting his reporting and downplaying coverage on AIDS and labour disturbances on the Mainland.
Becker's books include "China's Hungry Ghosts" (John Murray, 1996), which was about the Great Famine, and "Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea" (Oxford University Press, 2005). Becker has published both reportage and commentary for many news publications, including The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail in Canada, Business Week, the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.
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Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru (IPA: [dʒəʋaːɦərˈlaːl ˈneːɦru] ( listen), Hindi: जवाहरलाल नेहरू; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964), often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian lawyer, politician and statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India (1947–64) and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the 1930s and ’40s. Nehru was elected by the Indian National Congress to assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister, and re-elected when the Congress Party won India's first general election in 1951 and 1952. Nehru contributed to the establishment of a parliamentary democracy in India and was one of the founders of the international Non-Aligned Movement.
The son of moderate nationalist leader and Congressman Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru became a leader of the left wing of the Congress when fairly young. Rising to become Congress President under the mentorship of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nehru was a charismatic leader, advocating complete independence for India from the British Empire. Throughout his life, Nehru advocated Democratic Socialism/Fabian Socialism and a strong public sector as the means by which economic development could be pursued by poorer nations. He was the father of Indira Gandhi and the maternal grandfather of Rajiv Gandhi, who would later serve as the third and sixth Prime Ministers of India respectively.
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Jia Qinglin
Jia Qinglin (born March 1940 in Botou, Hebei, China) is a senior leader of the People's Republic of China. He is the fourth ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Chairman and Party secretary of the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference. Jia's functions as the head of China's consultative legislative body are largely ceremonial in nature. Earlier he had served as the CPC Party Chief in the country's southern Fujian province and Beijing.
An engineer by profession, and one of former General Secretary Jiang Zemin's trusted allies and protege, Jia Qinglin's rise in the politburo is attributed to his relationship with Jiang. Jia served as the Party chief in Fujian in the early 1990s. He was later transferred to Beijing in 1996 to replace then Beijing Party-chief Chen Xitong who was arrested on corruption charges. Jia served as the acting Mayor, Mayor and Party Chief in Beijing, coming onto the national and international spotlight during the 50th Anniversary of PRC celebrations as the event's host.
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Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing (pinyin: Jiāng Qīng; Wade–Giles: Chiang Ch'ing; IPA: [tɕjɑ́ŋ tɕʰíŋ]; 20 March 1914 – 14 May 1991) was the pseudonym that was used by Chinese leader Mao Zedong's last wife and major Communist Party of China power figure. She went by the stage name Lan Ping (Chinese: 蓝苹) during her acting career, and was known by various other names during her life. She married Mao in Yan'an in November 1938, and is sometimes referred to as Madame Mao in Western literature, serving as Communist China's first first lady. Jiang Qing was most well known for playing a major role in the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and for forming the radical political alliance known as the "Gang of Four". She was named the "Great Flag-carrier of the Proletarian Culture" (无产阶级文艺伟大旗手/無產階級文藝偉大旗手).
Jiang Qing served as Mao's personal secretary in the 1940s and was head of the Film Section of the CPC Propaganda Department in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, she made a bid for power during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which resulted in widespread chaos within the communist party. In 1966 she was appointed deputy director of the Central Cultural Revolution Group and claimed real power over Chinese politics for the first time. She became one of the masterminds of the Cultural Revolution, and along with three others, held absolute control over all of the national institutions.
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Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin (born 17 August 1926) is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005. His long career and political prominence have led to him being described as the "core of the third generation" of Communist Party leaders.
Jiang Zemin came to power following Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, replacing Zhao Ziyang as CPC General Secretary. With the waning influence of Deng Xiaoping and the other members of Eight Elders due to old age,and with the help of old and powerful party and state leaders, former President Li Xiannian and Chen Yun Jiang effectively became the "Paramount Leader" in the 1990s. Under his leadership, China experienced substantial developmental growth with reforms, saw the peaceful return of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom and Macau from Portugal, and improved its relations with the outside world while the Communist Party maintained its tight control over the government. Jiang has been criticized for being too concerned about his personal image at home, and too conciliatory towards Russia and the United States abroad.
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Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served as a U.S. Naval officer, was a peanut farmer, served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975).
During Carter's term as President, two new cabinet-level departments were created: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), 1980 Summer Olympics boycott by the United States of the Moscow Olympics and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
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Joe Clark
Charles Joseph "Joe" Clark, PC CC AOE (born June 5, 1939) is a Canadian statesman, businessman, and university professor, and former journalist and politician. He served as the 16th Prime Minister of Canada, from June 4, 1979, to March 3, 1980.
Despite his relative inexperience, Clark rose quickly in federal politics, entering the House of Commons in the 1972 election and winning the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1976. He came to power in the 1979 election, defeating the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau and ending sixteen continuous years of Liberal rule. Taking office the day before his 40th birthday, Clark is the youngest person to become Prime Minister. His tenure was brief as he only won a minority government, and it was defeated on a motion of non-confidence. Clark subsequently lost the 1980 election and the leadership of the party in 1983.
He returned to prominence in 1984 as a senior cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney's cabinet, retiring from politics after not standing for re-election for the House of Commons in 1993. He made a political comeback in 1998 to lead the Progressive Conservatives before its dissolution, serving his final term in Parliament from 2000 to 2004. Clark today is recognized as a distinguished scholar and statesman, and serves as a university professor and as president of his own consulting firm.
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John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker, PC, CH, QC (September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 21, 1957, to April 22, 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative (PC or Tory) party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of seats in the Canadian House of Commons.
Diefenbaker was born in southwestern Ontario in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the Northwest Territories which would shortly thereafter become the province of Saskatchewan. He grew up in the province, and was interested in politics from a young age. After brief service in World War I, Diefenbaker became a lawyer. He contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940.
In the House of Commons, Diefenbaker was repeatedly a candidate for the PC leadership. He attained leadership of the party in 1956, leading it for eleven years. In 1957, he led the party to its first electoral victory in 27 years; a year later he called a snap election and spearheaded the Tories to one of their greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his Cabinet, as well as the first aboriginal member of the Senate. During his six years as Prime Minister, his government obtained passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights and granted the vote to the First Nations and Inuit peoples. In foreign policy, his stance against apartheid helped secure the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth of Nations, but his indecision on whether to accept Bomarc nuclear missiles from the United States led to his government's downfall. Diefenbaker is also remembered for his role in the 1959 cancellation of the Avro Arrow project.
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John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world. He advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and it is widely believed that he refused to shake the hand of Zhou Enlai at the Geneva Conference in 1954. He also played a major role in the Central Intelligence Agency operation to overthrow the democratic Mossadegh government of Iran in 1953 (Operation Ajax) and the democratic Arbenz government of Guatemala in 1954 (Operation PBSUCCESS).
Born in Washington, D.C., he was one of five children and the eldest son born to Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles and his wife Edith (Foster). His paternal grandfather, John Welsh Dulles, had been a Presbyterian missionary in India. He attended public schools in Watertown, New York. After graduating from Princeton University (Phi Beta Kappa, 1908), where he competed on the American Whig-Cliosophic Society debate team, and graduating from The George Washington University Law School, he joined the New York City law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in international law. He tried to join the United States Army during World War I but was rejected because of poor eyesight. Instead, Dulles received an Army commission as Major on the War Industries Board.
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John McCain
John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 United States election.
McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.
He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily four times, most recently in 2010. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain at times has had a media reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the Keating Five, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s, and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion. McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.
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John Turner
John Napier Wyndham Turner, PC, CC, QC (born June 7, 1929) is an English Canadian lawyer and retired politician, who served as the 17th Prime Minister of Canada from June 30 to September 17, 1984.
In his political career, Turner held several prominent Cabinet posts, including minister of justice and minister of finance, under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau from 1968 to 1975. Amid a world recession and the prospect of having to implement the unpopular wage and price controls, Turner surprisingly resigned his position in 1975. After a hiatus from politics from 1975 to 1984, Turner returned and successfully contested the Liberal leadership. Turner held the office of Prime Minister for 79 days (the second shortest tenure in Canadian history after Charles Tupper), as he dissolved Parliament immediately after being sworn in as Prime Minister, and went on to lose the 1984 election in a landslide. Turner stayed on as Liberal leader and headed the Official Opposition for the next six years, leading his party to a modest recovery in the 1988 campaign, resigning from politics in 1990.
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Jon Halliday
Jon Halliday is an Irish historian of Russia and was a former Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London.
Halliday authored a biography of filmmaker Douglas Sirk and has written and edited seven other books. He and his wife, Jung Chang, live in Notting Hill, West London. Together they researched and wrote the biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: the Unknown Story which received critical praise as well as serious criticism and spurred debate in the academic community.
Jon Halliday is the younger brother of Irish International relations academic and writer Fred Halliday.
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Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (August 3, 1934 – February 22, 2002) was an Angolan political leader. He founded and led UNITA, a movement that first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–1974, then confronted the rival MPLA during the decolonization conflict, 1974-75, and after independence in 1975 fought the ruling MPLA in the Angolan Civil War until his death in a clash with government troops in 2002.
Savimbi was born on August 3, 1934, in Munhango, Moxico Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway, and raised in Bié Province. Savimbi's father, Lote, was a stationmaster on Angola's Benguela railway line and a preacher of the Protestant "Igreja Evangélica Congregacional de Angola", founded and maintained by American missionaries. Both his parents were members of the Bieno group of the Ovimbundu, the people who later served as Savimbi's major political base.
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Jonathan Fenby
Jonathan Fenby (born 11 November 1942) is a founding partner and Managing Director of the China team at Trusted Sources, the emerging markets research and consultancy firm headquartered in London. His investment and strategy research is focused towards China's policy interpretation, politics and broader political economy. He is also an author and journalist, and was Editor of The Observer newspaper from 1993-1995 and then Editor of the South China Morning Post from 1995-2000, during the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. He had earlier been Deputy Editor of The Guardian (1988-93), Home Editor of The Independent (at launch 1986-8), and Editor of Reuters World Service (1973-7). He was also chief correspondent for The Economist in France and Germany (1981-6) and wrote three books during that period.
Since returning to London from Hong Kong in 2000, he has worked at various on-line services and as Associate Editor of the newspaper, Sunday Business. Between 1998 and 2008, he published ten books, five on China and others on the Second World War and France. He contributes to a wide range of publications in the UK, US and Far East and broadcasts often, as well as speaking at conferences and lecturing at universities and public forums on China.
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Jonathan Spence
Jonathan D. Spence (Self-adopted Chinese name: simplified Chinese: 史景迁; traditional Chinese: 史景遷; pinyin: Shǐ Jǐngqiān, born August 11, 1936) is a British-born historian and public intellectual specializing in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he has written a dozen books on China. He retired from Yale in 2008.
In May and June 2008, he gave the 60th anniversary Reith Lectures, which were broadcasted on BBC Radio 4.
Spence's major interest is modern China and, especially, its relations with the West. A notable recurring theme in Spence's work is the use of biographies to examine the wider cultural history of China. Another common theme to Spence's work is his interests in efforts on the part of both Westerners and Chinese to Westernize China, and why such efforts have failed.
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Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxorxe rafaˈel βiˈðela]; born 2 August 1925) is a former senior commander in the Argentine Army who was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón. After the return of a representative democratic government, he was prosecuted for large-scale human rights abuses and crimes against humanity that took place under his rule, including kidnappings or forced disappearance, widespread torture and extrajudicial murder of activists, political opponents (either real, suspected or alleged) as well as their families, at secret concentration camps. The accusations also included the theft of many babies born during the captivity of their mothers at the illegal detention centres. He was under house arrest until 10 October 2008, when he was sent to a military prison. On 5 July 2010, Videla took full responsibility for his army's actions during his rule. "I accept the responsibility as the highest military authority during the internal war. My subordinates followed my orders," he told an Argentine court. On 22 December 2010, Videla was sentenced to life in a civilian prison for the deaths of 31 prisoners following his coup d'état.
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Jose Maria Sison
Jose Maria Sison (born February 8, 1939, Cabugao, Commonwealth of the Philippines) is a writer and activist who reorganized the Communist Party of the Philippines and added elements of Maoism to its philosophy.
Since August 2002, he has been classified as a "person supporting terrorism" by the United States. The European Union's second highest court ruled to delist him as a "person supporting terrorism" and reversed a decision by member governments to freeze assets.
Jose Maria Sison was born at Cabugao, Ilocos Sur on February 8, 1939. Also a member of a prominent family with the connections to other prominent personalities like the Crisologos, Sison affirmed his background as a member of a landowning family. But during his childhood days, his inclination to the left began by listening to his barber discussing him about the Hukblahap in Ilocos (kwentong barbero), as well as studying in a public school in Ilocos (unlike his relatives) before entering Ateneo de Manila, then in Colegio de San Juan de Letran. A 1959 graduate of the University of the Philippines, Sison studied in Indonesia, before returning to the Philippines to settle as a university professor of literature. Sison also joined the Lavaite Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas as well as one of the founding members of the Socialist Party and Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism. And in 1964, he co-founded the Kabataang Makabayan or Patriotic Youth with Nilo S. Tayag. This organization rallied Filipino youth against the Vietnam war, against the Marcos presidency and corrupt politicians alongside Imperialism, Bureaucrat Capitalism and Feudalism. The organization also spearheaded the studying of Maoism as part of the struggle.
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Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.
The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.
Born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, McCarthy earned a law degree at Marquette University in 1935 and was elected as a circuit judge in 1939, the youngest in state history. At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette, Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. McCarthy was never able to prove his sensational charge.
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Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин; born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While the office of the General Secretary was officially elective and not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, Stalin managed to use it to consolidate more and more power in his hands after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and gradually put down all opposition groups within the Communist Party. This included Leon Trotsky, a socialist theorist and the principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Whereas Trotsky was an exponent of permanent revolution, it was Stalin's concept of socialism in one country that became the primary focus of Soviet politics.
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Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [jɔ̂sip brɔ̂ːz tîtɔ]; born Josip Broz; Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1945 until his death in 1980. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, due to his successful economic and diplomatic policies, Tito was seen by most as a benevolent dictator, and was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies successfully maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.
Josip was born as the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz in the village of Kumrovec within Austria-Hungary (modern-day Croatia). Drafted into the army, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians, Josip was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in the October Revolution, and later joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Upon his return home, Broz found himself in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
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João Goulart
João Belchior Marques Goulart (gaúcho Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʒu.ɐ̃w bewˈki.ɔɾ ˈmarkis ɡuˈlaɾ], or [ˈʒwɐ̃w ˈbɛwkjɔʁ ˈmaʁkiʒ ɡuːˈlaʁ] in the standard fluminense dialect; March 1, 1919 – December 6, 1976) was a Brazilian politician and the 24th President of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on April 1, 1964. He is considered to have been the last left-wing President of the country until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003.
João Goulart is nicknamed "Jango" ([ˈʒɐ̃gu]). The Jânio Quadros–João Goulart presidential bid was thus called "Jan–Jan" ([ʒɐ̃.ʒɐ̃], an amalgamation of Jânio and Jango).
His childhood hypocoristics was "Janguinho" (little Jango), which came from an uncle named Jango. Years later, when he entered the world of politics, supported and advised by Getúlio Vargas, his friends and colleagues started to call him Jango.
His grandfather, Belchior Rodrigues Goulart, descended from Portuguese immigrants from Azores who arrived at Rio Grande do Sul in the second half of the 18th century. In the group of first Azoreans established in the state there were at least three immigrants with the surname Govaert (latter adapted to Goulart or Gularte in Portuguese) of Flemish-Azorean ancestors; the surname Goulart originates from France.
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Juan Ponce Enrile
Juan Ponce Enrile (born February 14, 1924) is a Filipino politician. As a protege of President Ferdinand Marcos, he served as Justice Secretary and then Defense Secretary under the Marcos regime. He later became one of the leaders (along with General Fidel V. Ramos) of the 1986 People Power Movement that drove Marcos from power. Enrile has continued to be a prominent politician since then; he has been President of the Senate of the Philippines since November 2008.
Juan Ponce Enrile was born Juanito Furagganan in Gonzaga, Cagayan, to Petra Furagganan, the daughter of a poor fisherman. He was born out of wedlock—his father was the already married powerful regional politician and renowned lawyer Alfonso Ponce Enrile. He is the second great-nephew of Mariano Ponce. He was reunited with his father by the time he reached his high school years.
He graduated cum laude in 1949 with an Associate of Arts degree at the Ateneo de Manila University. Afterward, he attended the University of the Philippines College of Law and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Laws degree. While in law school, he joined the Sigma Rho fraternity. Upon graduation, he was elected to the prestigious Pi Gamma Mu and Phi Kappa Phi international honor societies. He achieved the 11th highest score in the 1953 bar examinations with a 91.72% rating and a perfect score in mercantile law. As a scholar at the Harvard Law School, he earned a Master of Laws degree with specialized training in international tax law.
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Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere (13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985.
Born in Tanganyika to Nyerere Burito (1860–1942), Chief of the Zanaki, Nyerere was known by the Swahili name Mwalimu or 'teacher', his profession prior to politics. He was also referred to as Baba wa Taifa (Father of the Nation). Nyerere received his higher education at Makerere University in Kampala and the University of Edinburgh. After he returned to Tanganyika, he worked as a teacher. In 1954, he helped form the Tanganyika African National Union.
In 1961, Nyerere was elected Tanganyika's first Prime Minister, and following independence, in 1962, the country's first President. In 1964, Tanganyika became politically united with Zanzibar and was renamed to Tanzania. In 1965, a one-party election returned Nyerere to power. During the first years Nyerere created a single-party system and used "preventive detention" to eliminate trade unions and opposition.
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Jung Chang
Jung Chang (simplified Chinese: 张戎; traditional Chinese: 張戎; pinyin: Zhāng Róng; Wade–Giles: Chang Jung, born March 25, 1952) is a Chinese-British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China.
Her 832-page biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: The Unknown Story, written with her husband, the British historian Jon Halliday, was published in June 2005.
Chang was born March 25, 1952 in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China. Her parents were both Communist Party of China officials, and her father was greatly interested in literature. She quickly developed a love of reading and writing, composing poetry as a child.
As Party cadres, life was relatively good for her family at first; her parents worked hard, and her father became successful as a propagandist at a regional level. His formal ranking was as a "level 10 official", meaning that he was one of 20,000 or so most important cadres, or ganbu, in the country. The Communist Party provided her family with a dwelling in a guarded, walled compound, a maid and chauffeur, as well as a wet-nurse and nanny for Chang and her three siblings. This level of privilege in China's relatively impoverished 1950s was extraordinary.
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János Kádár
János Kádár (26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989) was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary. During Kádár's rule, Hungary was stabilized and liberalized to an extent never before seen in any Eastern Bloc country until Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary. Due to his age and declining health, he decided to retire as Secretary-General of the party in 1988, and a younger generation consisting mostly of reformers took over.
Kádár was born in Fiume to a poor family, his father left his mother and him when he was very young, and he never met his father. After living in the countryside for some years, Kádár and his mother moved to Budapest. After quitting school, Kádár joined the Communist Party of Hungary's youth organisation, KIMSZ. Kádár would go on to become a notable figure of the pre-World War II communist party, even becoming First Secretary. As leader he dissolved the party, and reorganised it as the Peace Party. This new party failed to win any popular support for the communist cause, and he would later be accused, of dissolving the Hungarian communist party. With the German invasion of Hungary, the Peace Party tried again to win support from the Hungarian populace, but failed. At the time of the Soviet occupation, the communists led by Kádár were very small in size.
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Kakuei Tanaka
Kakuei Tanaka (田中 角栄 or 田中 角榮, Tanaka Kakuei?, 4 May 1918 – 16 December 1993) was a Japanese politician and the 64th and 65th Prime Minister of Japan from 7 July 1972 to 22 December 1972 and from 22 December 1972 to 9 December 1974 respectively. He was also the most influential member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party until the mid-1980s, when he fell from power after a long series of scandals, leading him to be described as "that paragon of post-war corruption."
Tanaka, nicknamed Kaku-san, was known as the "Shadow Shogun" (闇将軍 Yami-shōgun. literally, "Shadow Shogun" or "Shogun of Darkness").
His political-economic direction is called construction state (土建国家, Doken Kokka?).
Tanaka was born into a rural family with seven children in Nishiyama, Niigata Prefecture. His father was involved with a disastrous venture to start Niigata's first dairy farm, and so the family scraped by in abject poverty. Kakuei left school after the equivalent of the eighth grade and went to work in the construction business, and soon moved to Tokyo.
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Kang Sheng
Kang Sheng (Chinese: 康生; pinyin: Kāng Shēng; c. 1898–December 16, 1975), Communist Party of China official, oversaw the work of the People's Republic of China's security and intelligence apparatus at the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. He was a close associate of Mao Zedong and remained at or near the pinnacle of power for decades. After his death, Kang Sheng was accused of sharing responsibility with the Gang of Four for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and expelled posthumously from the Communist Party in 1980.
Kang Sheng (康生) was born in Dataizhuang (Chinese: 大臺莊; pinyin: Dà Tái Zhuāng) (administrated under Jiaonan County since 1946), Zhucheng County (Chinese: 諸城; pinyin: Zhū Chéng) to the northwest of Qingdao in Shandong Province to a landowning family, some of whom had been Confucian scholars. Kang was born Zhang Zongke (simplified Chinese: 张宗可; traditional Chinese: 張宗可; pinyin: Zhāng Zōngkě) but he adopted a number of pseudonyms – most notably Zhao Rong, but also (for his painting) Li Jushi—before settling on Kang Sheng in the 1930s. Some sources give his year of birth as being as early as 1893, but it has also been variously given as 1898, 1899 and 1903.
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Kim Campbell
Avril Phædra Douglas "Kim" Campbell, PC CC OBC QC (born March 10, 1947) is a Canadian politician, lawyer, university professor, diplomat, and writer. She served as the 19th Prime Minister of Canada, from June 25, 1993 to November 4, 1993. Campbell was the first and to date the only female Prime Minister of Canada, the first baby boomer to hold that office, and the only PM to have been born in British Columbia.
Campbell was born in Port Alberni, British Columbia to George Thomas Campbell (1920–2002) and Phyllis "Lisa" Cook. Her mother left the family when Campbell was 12, leaving Kim and her sister Alix to be raised by their father. As a teenager, Campbell permanently nicknamed herself Kim, perhaps for actress Kim Novak.
While in her pre-teens, Campbell was a host and reporter on the CBC children's program Junior Television Club.
Campbell and her family moved to Vancouver, where she attended Prince of Wales Secondary School, and was a top student. She became the school's first female student president, and graduated in 1964.
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Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 1912–11 May 1988) was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union. He served as both an NKVD and KGB operative.
In 1963, Philby was revealed to be a member of the spy ring now known as the Cambridge Five, the other members of which were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviet Union. His activities were moderated only by Joseph Stalin's fears that he was secretly on Britain's side. Philby was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from 1946 to 1965.
Philby was born at Ambala in the Punjab while it was a province of British India. His father, St. John Philby, a well-known author, orientalist, and convert to Islam, was a member of the Indian Civil Service and later a civil servant in Mesopotamia and advisor to King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia.
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Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (German pronunciation: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈhɛɐman ˈjoːzɛf ˈaːdənaʊɐ]; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman. As Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963, he led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that forged close relations with old enemies France and the United States. In his years in power Germany achieved prosperity, democracy, stability and respect. He was the first chancellor (head of government) of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, called West Germany), 1949–63. He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a coalition of Catholics and Protestants that under his leadership became and has since remained the most dominant in Germany.
Adenauer, dubbed "Der Alte" ("the old one"), belied his age as the oldest elected leader in world history by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. He displayed a strong dedication to a broad vision of democracy, capitalism, and anti-Communism. A shrewd politician, Adenauer was deeply committed to a Western-oriented foreign policy and restoring the position of West Germany on the world stage. He worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction in World War II to a central position in Europe, rebuilt its army and came to terms with France, helped make possible Western European unification, opposed rival East Germany, and made his nation a member of NATO and a firm ally of the United States.
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Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko (24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985. Chernenko was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death.
Chernenko was born to a poor family in the village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai). His father, Ustin Demidovich (of Ukrainian origin),[citation needed] worked in copper and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work.
Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929, and became a full member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet-Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. Chernenko then steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment then in 1939, the Deputy Head of the AgitProp Department of Krasnoyarsk Territorial Committee and finally, in 1941 he was appointed Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda. It was in the 1940s that Chernenko established a close-knit relationship with Fyodor Kulakov. In 1945, he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow, and in 1953 he finished a correspondence course for schoolteachers.
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Korean War
The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half.
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Kulak
Kulaks (Russian: кула́к, kulak, "fist", by extension "tight-fisted"; kurkuls in Ukraine, also used in Russian texts in Ukrainian contexts) were a category of relatively affluent farmers in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged from the peasantry and became wealthy following the Stolypin reform, which began in 1906.
According to the political theory of Marxism-Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants.Vladimir Lenin described them as "bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine.” Marxism-Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat (urban and industrial workers). In addition, the planned economy of Soviet Bolshevism required the collectivization of farms and land to allow industrialization or conversion to large-scale agricultural production. In practice, these Marxist-Leninist theories led to disruption of agriculture as government officials violently seized kulak farms and murdered resistors.
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Kwame Nkrumah
The Rt. Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972), P.C., was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1951 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963.
Kwame Nkrumah was born in 1909 to Madam Nyaniba in Nkroful, Gold Coast. Nkrumah trained to be a teacher at Achimota School in Accra from 1927 to 1930 . For the following 5 years he worked as a teacher in several schools in the Gold Coast including a Catholic school in Axim, whilst saving money to continue his education in the USA. In 1935 he sailed from Takoradi, the Gold Coast's main port, to Liverpool in England, and made his way to London where he obtained his student visa from the US Embassy. It was while he was in London in late 1935 thet he heard the news of Fascist Italy's invasion of Abyssinia, an event that outraged the young Nkrumah and influenced his political development. In October 1935 Nkrumah sailed from Liverpool to the United States and enrolled in Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He graduated with a BA in 1939, and received a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1942. Nkrumah earned a Master of Science in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942, and a Master of Arts in philosophy the following year. While lecturing in political science at Lincoln he was elected president of the African Students Organization of America and Canada. As an undergraduate at Lincoln he participated in at least one student theater production and published an essay on European government in Africa in the student newspaper, The Lincolnian.
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Le Duan
Lê Duẩn (7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s, and was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam at the 3rd Party Congress. Le Duan continued Hồ Chí Minh's policy of ruling through collective leadership. From 1958 until his death in 1986, Le Duan was the top decision-maker in Vietnam.
Born into a lower class family in Quảng Trị province, French Indochina, little is known about Le Duan's family and childhood; his birthname remains unknown. He first came in contact with Marxist literature in the 1920s through his work as a railway clerk. Le Duan was a founding member of the Indochina Communist Party (the future Communist Party of Vietnam) in 1930, but was arrested the following year, in 1931. He spent six years in jail until he was released in 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he worked himself up the party ladder; but he was rearrested in 1939, this time for fomenting an uprising in the South. Le Duan was released from jail following the successful communist-led August Revolution.
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Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (commonly rendered Walesa) (Polish: [ˈlɛx vaˈwɛ̃sa] ( listen), English: /ˌlɛk vəˈwɛnsə/ or /wɔːˈlɛnsə/; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 1995.
Wałęsa was an electrician by trade, with no higher education. Soon after beginning work at the Gdańsk (then, "Lenin") Shipyards, he became a trade-union activist. For this he was persecuted by the Polish communist government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government, and he became a co-founder of the Solidarity trade-union movement. Arrested again after martial law was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the 1989 Round Table Agreement that led to semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989 and to a Solidarity-led government.
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Leonel Brizola
Leonel de Moura Brizola (January 22, 1922 – June 21, 2004) was a Brazilian politician. Launched in politics by Getúlio Vargas, Brizola was the only politician to serve as governor of two different states in the whole history of Brazil. In 1959 he was elected governor of Rio Grande do Sul, and in 1982 and 1990 he was elected governor of Rio de Janeiro. He was also vice-president of the Socialist International, as well as Honorary President of that organization for a few months, from October 2003 until his death. Brizola and his party (Democratic Labour Party) preached and practiced a kind of social democratic left-wing policy.
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Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев; IPA: [lʲɪɐˈnʲid ɪlʲˈjitɕ ˈbrʲeʐnʲɪf] ( listen); Ukrainian: Леоні́д Іллі́ч Бре́жнєв, 19 December 1906 (O.S. 6 December) – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in length. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time, but his tenure as leader has often been criticised for marking the beginning of a period of economic stagnation in which serious economic problems were overlooked, problems which eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoe into a Russian worker's family. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industry, in Ukraine. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became an active member of the Communist Party. He was drafted into immediate military service during World War II and left the army in 1946 with the rank of Major General. In 1952 Brezhnev became a member of the Central Committee, and in 1964, Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary. Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev in his post as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
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Leopoldo Galtieri
Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri Castelli (July 15, 1926 – January 12, 2003) was an Argentine general and President of Argentina from December 22, 1981 to June 18, 1982, during the last military dictatorship (known officially as the National Reorganization Process). The death squad Intelligence Battalion 601 directly reported to him. He was removed from power soon after the British retook the Falklands Islands, whose invasion he had ordered.
Galtieri was the child of working class parents who were poor Italian immigrants. At 17 he enrolled at the National Military Academy to study civil engineering, and his early military career was as an officer in the engineering branch.
In 1975, after more than 25 years as a combat engineer, he became commander of the Argentine engineering corps. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the military coup that started the self-styled National Reorganisation Process in 1976 and rose further, becoming a major general in 1977, and commander-in-chief in 1980 with the rank of lieutenant general.
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Li Bai
Li Bai (Chinese: 李白; pinyin: Lǐ Bái and/or Lǐ Bó, 701 – 762, also well known as Li Po, among other transliterations) was a major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period. Regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Tang Dynasty, often called China's "golden age" of poetry, Li Bai was both a prolific and a profound poet, as well as one who stretched the rules of versification of his time. Around a thousand yet existing poems are attributed to him. Thirty-four of his poems are included in the popular anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems.
In the area of Chinese cultural influence, Li Bai's poetry has been much esteemed from his lifetime through the present day. His influence also extends to the West through many translations, adaptations, and much inspiration.
Li (李) is the family name, or surname; however, he has been and is known by various names. His given name is written with a Chinese character (白), which is romanized variously as Po, Bo, Bai, Pai, and other variants. Even in Hanyu Pinyin there is ambiguity, as Bái is the common variant and Bó the literary variant. His style name, also known as courtesy name, was Tài Bái (太白), literally "Great White," a reference to the planet Venus. Thus, combining the family name with the style name, his name appears in variants such as Li Tai Bo, Li Tai Bai, Li T'aipo, and others). Less commonly in English, he also may be known by the pseudonym (hao), Qīnglián Jūshì (青蓮居士), meaning Householder of the Azure Lotus, or the nicknames Poet Transcendent (simplified Chinese: 诗仙; traditional Chinese: 詩仙; pinyin: Shīxiān), Wine Immortal (Chinese: 酒仙; pinyin: Jiǔxiān), Banished Transcendent (Chinese: 謫仙人; pinyin: Zhéxiānrén), Poet Knight-Errant (simplified Chinese: 诗侠; traditional Chinese: 詩俠; pinyin: Shīxiá, or "Poet-Hero"). In works in which the English transliteration is derived through Japanese, his name may be given as Ri Haku. All of these variants, and more, with or without hyphenation, have been historically attested to.
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Li Dazhao
Li Dazhao (October 29, 1888 - April 28, 1927) was a Chinese intellectual who co-founded the Communist Party of China with Chen Duxiu in 1921.
Li was born in Laoting (a county of Tangshan), Hebei province to a peasant family. He began his high school education at Tangshan Number 1 High School in 1905. From 1913 to 1917 Li studied political economy at Waseda University in Japan before returning to China in 1918.
As a leading intellectual in the New Culture Movement, Li was recruited by Cai Yuanpei to head the library at Peking University. In this position he influenced a number of students in the May Fourth Movement, including Mao Zedong, who worked in the library's reading room. Li was among the first of the Chinese intellectuals to look to China's villages as a basis for a political movement and was among the earliest to explore the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union as a possible model for China's reform. Even as late as 1921, however, he still maintained warm relations with other New Culture figures such as Hu Shi.
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Li He
Li He (Chinese: 李賀; Wade–Giles: Li Ho) (790–816), courtesy name Changji (長吉), was a short-lived Chinese poet of the late Tang Dynasty, known for his unconventional and imaginative style.
A native of Changgu (昌谷, modern-day Luoyang, Henan), Li was discouraged by some of his contemporaries from taking the Imperial Examination owing to naming taboo: his father's name happened to sound similar to Jinshi. Encouraged by Han Yu, who admired his talent, Li took the examination but failed it. Despite his distant royal ancestry, Li died a petty and poor official at the age of 27. There is some debate over his actual dates but according to Frodsham (1983), "the weight of evidence suggests that he was born in a Horse year, since he wrote no less than twenty-three poems in which the horse stands as a symbol for himself".
About 240 poems survived. His works were admired by the poets of the late Tang Dynasty. His collected poems were prefaced by Du Mu, and a short biography was written by Li Shangyin. Although his works were admired by many during and since his lifetime, they were not accepted in the canonical tradition: none of his poems made their way into the popular anthologies such as the Three Hundred Tang Poems.
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Li Lisan
Lǐ Lìsān (Chinese: 李立三; pinyin: Lǐ Lìsān) (March 1899–June 22, 1967) was an early leader of the Chinese communists, and the top leader of the Chinese Communist Party from 1928 to 1930, member of the Politburo, and later a member of the Central Committee.
Li was born in Liling, Hunan province in China in 1899, under the name of Li Rongzhi. His father, a teacher, taught Li Chinese traditional poems and classics. In 1915, he arrived at Changsha for high school and saw an advertisement in a newspaper written by a student from First Normal School of Changsha with the pen name 28 Strokes. Li met, and then became friends with, the young man whose real name was Mao Zedong. Later, Li joined the army of a local warlord in Hunan. One of the Division Commanders, Cheng Qian (程潜), who was both Li's father's townsman and alumni, sponsored Li to study in Beijing.
When Li reached Beijing, he applied to study in France and arrived there in 1920. He worked part-time as assistant to a boilermaker to earn his tuition. His boss was a member of Communist Party, and Li was influenced in accepting Communism, taking part actively in the struggles for Chinese labor rights in France. For his active and fearless revolutionary work, Li was labelled as a trouble-maker. In 1921, Li was expelled back to China with more than 100 other Chinese by the French authorities.
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Li Minqi
Minqi Li is a Chinese Political Economist, world-systems analyst, and historical social scientist, currently an associate professor of Economics at the University of Utah. Li is known as an advocate of the Chinese New Left and a Neo-Marxist economist.
Li was a student at the Economic Management Department of Beijing University during the period 1987–90. There he studied and became convinced of neoliberal 'Chicago School' economics. He engaged in many protests of the existing economic system, and engaged in much activism after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Li was arrested after advocating free market principles in 1990, and made a vast switch to become a Marxist after extensive reading of the works of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, and others while a political prisoner until his release in 1992. Li spent the next two years traveling in China, debating with remaining liberal dissident activists and conducting his own research into political,economic, and social development in modern China, using fake identification to visit provincial and city libraries. His view became one opposed to the mainstream, being that Mao Zedong's influence was a "revolutionary legacy rather than a historical burden for future socialist revolutionaries."
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Li Ruihuan
Li Ruihuan (simplified Chinese: 李瑞环; traditional Chinese: 李瑞環; pinyin: Lǐ Ruìhuán, born September 1934) was a politician active late 20th century and early 21st century in the People's Republic of China. Li was a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of 15th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China until November 2002. He served as Chairman of the 9th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) until March 2003.
A native of Baodi County, Tianjin, and originally a carpenter, he was elected and reelected chairman of the 8th and 9th CPPCC National Committees in March 1993 and March 1998. Li Ruihuan is the sixth chairman of the CPPCC after Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Deng Yingchao, and Li Xiannian. Since this post has been held by some of the most prominent revolutionary elders, it is spoken of "noble and sacred" by reverent observers. The principal duties of the CPPCC chief are mainly advisory and conciliatory; Li's duties focused on mitigating conflict between different sectors of society, conferring on state affairs, and providing ideas for the top bodies of PRC central government for reference.
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Li Xiannian
Li Xiannian (pronounced [lì ɕjánnjân]; 23 June 1909 – 21 June 1992) was President of the People's Republic of China between 1983 and 1988 and then Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference until his death. Li was an influential political figure throughout the PRC, having been a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China from 1956. He rose to prominence in the Communist Party of China in 1976, when Hua Guofeng succeeded Mao Zedong as Chairman of the Communist Party of China. At the height of his career in the 1980s, Li was considered one of the most influential architects of China's economic policy after the Cultural Revolution, and is considered one of the Eight Elders of Communist Party of China.
Li joined the Communist Party of China in 1927, and served as an army captain and political commissar for the Chinese Red Army during the Long March.
After the Communists victory in China, Li was appointed Party Secretary of Hubei Province in China from 1949–1954, and Commander of the Hubei Province's military garrison and political commissar. In 1950, Li was elected the first Chairman of the Hubei People's Government. While he was working in Hubei, Li was appointed Party Secretary of Wuhan and Vice-Chairman of the PRC's Military Commission South-Central China.
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Li Zhisui
Li Zhisui (simplified Chinese: 李志绥; traditional Chinese: 李志綏; pinyin: Lǐ Zhìsuī) (b. 1919, Beijing, China d. February 13, 1995, Carol Stream, Illinois) was Mao Zedong's personal physician and confidante. After immigrating to the United States, he wrote a biography of his experiences with Mao entitled The Private Life of Chairman Mao .
Weeks after he announced on a TV interview that he was going to write another memoir[citation needed], Li died of a heart attack at his son's house. He had lived with his son after immigrating to the United States.
As a physician, Li was interested in psychiatry. In October 1986, Li wrote the Preface for the first Chinese textbook on psychopharmacology, "Psychopharmacological Treatment for Psychiatric Disorders." [Editors: Drs. Neng Cai (Tsai)（蔡能）, Hong-zhang Shi (史鸿璋）, etc., Shanghai Scientific Technology Publisher, May 1987]
The private life of Chairman Mao: the memoirs of Mao's private physician, Publ. Random House, New York (1994), ISBN 0-679-76443-7
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Lin Biao
Lin Biao (pinyin: Lín Biāo; IPA: [lǐn pjɑ́ʊ]; December 5, 1907– September 13, 1971) was a major Chinese Communist military leader who was pivotal in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeastern China. Lin was the general who commanded the decisive Liaoshen Campaign and Pingjin Campaign, co-led the Northeast battlefield army of the People's Liberation Army into Beijing, and crossed the Yangtze River in 1949. He ranked third among the Ten Marshals. Zhu De and Peng Dehuai were considered senior to Lin, and Lin ranked ahead of He Long and Liu Bocheng.
Lin abstained from taking an active role in politics after the civil war, but became instrumental in creating the foundations for Mao Zedong's cult of personality in the early 1960s. Lin was rewarded for his service to Mao by being named Mao's designated successor during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 until his death.
Lin died in September 1971 when his plane crashed in Mongolia, following what appeared to be a failed coup to oust Mao. Because little inside information is available to the public on this "Lin Biao incident", the exact events preceding Lin's death have been a source of speculation among China scholars ever since. Following Lin's death, he was officially condemned as a traitor by the Communist Party of China. He and Jiang Qing are still considered to be the two "major Counter-revolutionary cliques" blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
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Liu Shaoqi
Liu Shaoqi (pinyin: Liú Shàoqí; Wade–Giles: Liu Shao-ch'i IPA: [ljǒʊ ʂɑ̂ʊtɕʰǐ]; 24 November 1898 – 12 November 1969) was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. He was Chairman of the People's Republic of China, China's head of state, from 27 April 1959 to 31 October 1968, during which he implemented policies of economic reconstruction in China. He fell out of favour in the later 1960s during the Cultural Revolution because of his perceived 'right-wing' viewpoints and, it is theorised, because Mao viewed Liu as a threat to his power. He disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled China's premier 'Capitalist-roader' and a traitor. He died under harsh treatment in late 1969, but he was posthumously rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping's government in 1980 and given a state funeral.
Born into a moderately rich peasant family in Huaminglou village,Ningxiang county, Hunan province, Liu attended Ningxiang Zhusheng Middle School (宁乡 驻省 中学 Nìng-xiāng zhù-shěng zhōng-xué), and was recommended to attend a class in Shanghai prepared for studying in Russia. In 1920, Liu and Ren Bishi joined a Socialist Youth Corp; and in the next year, Liu was recruited to study at the Comintern's University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow. In 1921 Liu joined the newly formed Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Liu went back to China in 1922, and as secretary of the All-China Labor Syndicate, led several railway workers' strikes in the Yangzi Valley and at Anyuan on the Jiangxi-Hunan border.
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Luo Yixiu
Luó Yīxiù (simplified Chinese: 罗一秀; traditional Chinese: 羅一秀; pinyin: Luó Yīxiù; 1889-1910) was the first wife of Mao Zedong from 1907 until her death in 1910. She was from the town of Shaoshan, Hunan province, China.
It was an arranged marriage, but Mao (then 14) was far too ambitious to simply settle down to the normal life of a farmer and family man. He insisted on leaving the area in order to pursue his studies. The marriage broke up, and for many decades the identity of the bride was kept secret in order to spare her family embarrassment. Mao never formally acknowledged the marriage.
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Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes (January 3, 1898 – March 7, 1990) was a leader of the 1920s tenente rebellion and the Communist opposition to the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil.
Known as the "Knight of Hope" - title of a biography written by Jorge Amado - Prestes helped organize the failed tenente rebellion of 1922, a revolt by the largely middle class officer corps and poor conscripted servicemen against the agrarian oligarchies that dominated Brazil's Old Republic (1889–1930). As he was sick with typhoid fever, he was not able to fight on the day of the rebellion. From 1924 Prestes was one of the leaders of the insurrectionary movement, leading the Coluna Prestes Prestes' column on a 25,000 km (15,534 mi) march through the rural Brazilian countryside, aiming not to defeat the enemy forces of the Federal government, but keep the column in being and continue to threaten the enemy.
The tenente revolt heralded the end of the politics of coffee and milk and coronelism and the beginning of social reforms. Years later, in 1930 the Revolution of 1930 would bring down the Old Republic. Joined by many moderate tenentes, but not Prestes, the Revolution of 1930 installed Getúlio Vargas as provisional president. Although the tenentes sympathized with him, Vargas was a far more conservative figure. As the tenentes wanted Prestes to join Vargas, Prestes decided to meet him in Porto Alegre and explained his idea of socialist revolution for around two hours. Vargas was highly impressed by him, and even donated 800 contos de réis, around 400,000 USD, but Prestes viewed Vargas as the leader of a bourgeois revolution, and decided to donate most of the money to the Latin American branch of the Comintern, which financed the group for a few years. Another part of the money was given to the tenente Siqueira Campos, who died in a plane crash while flying from Argentina to Brazil. His body was discovered three days later, but the money was never found.
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Manuel Noriega
Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈnwel noˈɾjeɣa]; born February 11, 1934) is a former Panamanian politician and soldier. He was military governor of Panama from 1983 to 1989.
In the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States he was removed from power, captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992. Noriega's U.S. prison sentence ended in September 2007; pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia for murder in 1995 and money laundering in 1999. France was granted its extradition request in April 2010. He arrived in Paris on April 27, 2010, and after a re-trial as a condition of the extradition, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2010. A conditional release was granted on September 23, 2011 for Noriega to be extradited to serve 20 years in Panama. He arrived in Panama on December 11, 2011.
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Mao Anqing
Mao Anqing (2 November 1923 - 23 March 2007) (Simplified Chinese: 毛岸青) was the last known surviving son of Mao Zedong. He was the second son of Chairman Mao and his wife, Yang Kaihui. He suffered from a mental illness. He worked as a translator and never became active in politics.
Mao Anqing was born in Changsha, in Hunan province. His mother was executed by the local warlord, He Jian, in 1930. Mao Anqing, his elder brother Mao Anying and his younger brother Mao Anlong escaped to Shanghai. Their father was in Jiangxi province at the time, and they were looked after by local communist activists. They spent some time living on the streets, and Mao Anqing was badly beaten by a policeman in 1930. Some blame this beating for his later mental illness. His younger brother Mao Anlong died in Shanghai.
He and his surviving elder brother were sent to Paris in 1936, and then moved to Moscow, where they remained until 1947. Mao Anqing and his brother participated in World War II for the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.
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Mao Anying
Mao Anying (Chinese: 毛岸英, Pinyin: Máo Ànyīng) (24 October 1922 – 25 November 1950) was the eldest son of Mao Zedong and Yang Kaihui. Educated in Moscow, he was killed in action by an air strike during the Korean War.
Mao Anying was born in an American Christian hospital in Changsha, Hunan Province. His mother, Yang Kaihui was executed by the Kuomintang in 1930. He and his younger brother, Mao Anqing, escaped to Shanghai, where they attended a kindergarten run by the Communist underground. In Shanghai, they lived with Pastor Dong Jianwu (董健吾), who was an Communist party member.
In 1933, the Communists moved their headquarter to Jiangxi, care for the brothers was temporarily cut off and they lived on the streets as orphans. Their father, Mao Zedong was in the Jiangxi province at the time.
In 1936 Anying was brought to Paris by Li Du, from Paris, he was then sent to Moscow where he studied under the pseudonym Xie Liaosha (謝廖沙). He joined the Soviet Army during the Second World War and saw combat in the Eastern European theater. After the war, he returned to China in January 1946, and married Liu Songlin in October 1949.
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Mao Xinyu
Mao Xinyu, born Saturday, 17 January 1970, is a Chinese historian and military officer, and grandson of Mao Zedong.
Mao Xinyu graduated from the History Department of Renmin University of China in 1992. He works as a researcher at the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, where he completed his doctorate. Among the several books he has written is Grandfather Mao Zedong (Yeye Mao Zedong), published by the National Defence University Press in October 2003.
Mao won promotion to the rank of major general in the People's Liberation Army in June 2009, in a controversial move. According to the Changjiang Daily, Mao is now the youngest general in the PLA.
Following his promotion to general Mao was severely criticized by opponents of the communist regime. Some critics described his promotion as nepotism. "To have such an unqualified person become a general in China's military, it's an insult to the People's Liberation Army," said Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer and human rights activist. "Those promoted in the future as generals should feel humiliated by this," he continued. “This is a natural elevation. Mao's many achievements earned him the right to be promoted,” said Bao Goujun, a spokesman for the Academy of Military Sciences.
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Mao Yuanxin
Mao Yuanxin (born 14 February 1941) was the liaison between Chinese leader Mao Zedong and the Communist Party's Central Committee in the former's ailing years, when he was no longer able to regularly attend political functions. He was Mao Zedong's nephew and considered an ally to the hardline political faction known as the Gang of Four, and was arrested soon after Mao's death after a political struggle ensued, and was sentenced to prison.
Born on 14 February 1941, Mao Yuanxin is the son of Mao Zemin, a younger brother of Mao Zedong. Mao Zemin had joined the Communist Party in 1922 and was killed by a warlord in 1943. Sheng Shicai, governor of Xinjiang, had been aligned to the Chinese Communist Party and had at first welcomed Mao Zemin, but switched allegiance after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Mao Yuanxin's mother was also arrested, and Yuanxin was born in jail. After Mao Yuanxin's mother remarried, he was brought up as part of his uncle's family.
In 1960, Mao Yuanxin was admitted to Tsinghua University, then transferred to the PLA Institute of Military Engineering and became politically important during the Cultural Revolution. In 1973 he became party secretary of Liaoning province and political commissar of Shenyang Military Region in 1974. Mao was ailing from complications of Alzheimer's Disease and was no longer able to attend Central Committee meetings on a regular basis. As a result, Mao Yuanxin became the Chairman's liaison with the Politburo in 1975, and contributed to the temporary fall of Deng Xiaoping in 1976, as well as a series of other political manuoevers of the Gang of Four. [2]
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Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung listen (help·info), and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held authoritarian control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.
Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion, and leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. After solidifying the reunification of China through his Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Mao enacted sweeping land reform, by using violence and terror to overthrow the feudal landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes. During the years when Mao was China’s 'Great Helmsman', a range of positive changes came to China. These included promoting the status of women, improving popular literacy, doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. In addition, China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership (from around 550 to over 900 million). As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many in China as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists further promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary, while anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.
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Mao Zejian
Mao Zejian (毛澤建) (October 1905–20 August 1929) was a cousin of Mao Zedong, who was executed by the Kuomintang in Hengshan, Hunan.
When Edgar Snow interviewed Mao Zedong for his book Red Star Over China in 1936, he recorded Mao Zejian's name as Mao Zehong (毛澤紅) and stated that she was his sister. This error has been carried forward ever since. Although a cousin, she had lived for a long period with Mao's parents, and by custom Mao referred to her as "sister." A guerrilla leader in her own right, she was captured by the KMT in 1928, and was executed in August 1929, at the age of 24.
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Mao Zemin
Mao Zemin (April 3, 1896 to September 27, 1943), also using Zhoubin as his alias, was born in Xiangtan, Hunan province. He was the head of the state bank of the Red State in Ruijin and also the Minister of National Economic Department. He was a younger brother of Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao), and joined the Communist Party of China early on. During World War II, he was sent to Xinjiang by the Party central committee in 1938. He and Chen Tanqiu (陈潭秋) were arrested by the warlord Sheng Shicai (盛世才) while at Ürümqi, Xinjiang. He was executed on September 27, 1943.
Mao Zemin (who took Runlian (润莲) as his courtesy name) was brother of communist leaders Mao Zedong and Mao Zetan. He joined in the CPC in 1922. He was appointed the minister of the economic department in Minyuegan (闽粤赣) area in 1931, and the manager of national bank later in the year. Mao Zemin studied in school for only 4 years.
In the autumn of 1921, Mao Zemin studied in the Hunan self-study University which was founded by Mao Zedong, and raised money for the CPC. At the end of the year he Joined the Communist Party of China.
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Mao Zetan
Máo Zétán (毛泽覃, also named Máo Zélín 毛泽淋, courtesy name first Yǒngjú 咏菊, then Rùnjú 润菊) (September 25, 1905 - April 25, 1935) was the younger one of Mao Zedong's two brothers. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. In 1927, he participated in the Nanchang Uprising, retreating with the Communists to the Jinggang Mountains at its completion. At the age of 29, he was captured and executed while fighting Kuomintang forces in the Jiangxi Soviet, covering the withdrawal of the main Communist army during the Long March.
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Marcelo Caetano
Marcelo José das Neves Alves Caetano, GCTE, GCC, also spelled Marcello Caetano (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐɾˈsɛlu kɐiˈtɐnu]; Lisbon, 17 August 1906 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 26 October 1980), was a Portuguese politician and scholar, who was the last prime minister of the Estado Novo regime, from 1968 until his overthrow in the Carnation Revolution of 1974.
He was a son of José Maria de Almeida Alves Caetano and his first wife Josefa Maria das Neves. Graduated as a Licentiate and later a Doctorate in Law, Caetano was a Cathedratic Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, where he graduated and of which he would also become the 9th Dean or Rector. An ultraconservative politician and a self-proclaimed reactionary in his youth, Caetano started his political career in the 1930s under the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. He soon became an important figure in the "Estado Novo" government, and in 1940 was appointed chief of the Portuguese Youth organisation. Caetano progressed in his academic career at the university, publishing several works and lecturing law. While in jail due to political causes, Álvaro Cunhal, law student, the future leader and founder of the Portuguese Communist Party, submitted his final thesis on the topic of abortion before a faculty jury that included Marcelo Caetano. Between 1944 and 1947 Caetano was Minister of the Colonies and since 1947 President of the Executive Board of the National Union. He served as President of the Corporative Chamber between 1949 and 1955.
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Marcos Pérez Jiménez
Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez (Michelena, Táchira, April 25, 1914 – Alcobendas, Spain, September 20, 2001) was a Venezuelan military and general officer of the Army of Venezuela, engineer and politician.
His period in charge of the country is characterized by a marked improvement and development, with the rise of oil prices due to conflicts like the Korean War, its ambitious policy of public works and building could be executed to perfection. Also achieved an imminent development of industries such as hydropower, mining, steel, real estate sector and of course the building itself, all these bases, the high level of economic prosperity that is lived in the country.
Not go unnoticed, the progress in the military, which included the final professionalization of the armed forces, and increased sophistication of equipment, raising the level of armaments, and in general, the modernized undertaken in the area, while in with regard to domestic policy, the country experienced a state of order, high safety standards, but the negative side, said highly repressive character, with the National Security (Seguridad Nacional, secret police), as the spearhead and the almost complete concentration of power in his hands, turning his presidency into a dictatorial regime.
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Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) British prime minister of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the "Iron Lady", which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975 Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition, as well as the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became prime minister after winning the 1979 general election.
After entering 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what she perceived as Britain's precipitous national decline. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership.
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Masayoshi Ōhira
Masayoshi Ōhira (大平 正芳, Ōhira Masayoshi?, March 12, 1910 – June 12, 1980) was a Japanese politician and the 68th and 69th Prime Minister of Japan from December 7, 1978 to June 12, 1980. He is the most recent Japanese prime minister to die in office.
He was born in present day Kan'onji, Kagawa and attended Hitotsubashi University.
At the apex of his political life, Ōhira came to represent what were known as "mainstream factions" within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which put him at odds with Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, who led what were known as an "anti-mainstream" faction.
Ōhira was elected to the presidency of the LDP in late 1978.
On December 7, 1978, he was appointed 68th Prime Minister, successfully pushing Takeo Fukuda from his position.
Ōhira was the sixth Christian to hold this office after Hara Takashi, Takahashi Korekiyo, Ichirō Hatoyama, Tetsu Katayama, and Shigeru Yoshida.
In the general election of 1979, the LDP narrowly failed to win an outright majority, but enough independent members of the Diet joined the party to enable Ōhira to remain in office, and he was duly reappointed on November 9 of that year. On May 16, 1980, a vote of no confidence was held in the Diet.
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Maurice Meisner
Maurice Jerome Meisner (November 17, 1931 – January 23, 2012) was an historian of 20th century China and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His study of the Chinese revolution and the People's Republic was in conjunction with his strong interest in socialist ideology, Marxism, and Maoism in particular. He authored a number of books including Mao's China: A History of the People's Republic (and subsequent editions) which became a standard academic text in that area.
Maurice Meisner was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1931 to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He had two marriages each lasting about 30 years, first to Lorraine Faxon Meisner and subsequently to Lynn Lubkeman. He had 3 children from the first marriage and one child from the second. He died at his home in Madison, Wisconsin in 2012.
Meisner grew up in Detroit during the austere years of the Great Depression and World War II. But by the time he reached adulthood during the post-war boom, Detroit was a thriving center of culture as well as industry. He remained in Detroit, enrolling at Wayne State University. An outstanding student, Meisner was admitted to a graduate program there after only two years of college.
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Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin (help·info) (Hebrew: מְנַחֵם בֵּגִין, Polish: Mieczysław Biegun, Arabic: مناحيم بيغن Munahayyim Beeghin, Russian: Менахем Вольфович Бегин Menakhem Vol'fovich Begin, 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine.
Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War), but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labour Party political dominance. He probably served as Opposition Leader longer than anyone in the history of modern democratic politics.
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Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق, Damascus, 1910 – Paris, 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).
Born into a middle class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics. Aflaq became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported France's colonial policies. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).
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Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, tr. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejəvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕof] ( listen); born 2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the Soviet Union, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born during the Communist rule.
Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family, and in his teens operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the deaths of Soviet Leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level.
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Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (born Joseph-Desiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), commonly known as Mobutu or Mobutu Sese Seko ( /məˈbuːtuː ˈsɛseɪ ˈsɛkoʊ/), was the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (also known as Zaire for much of his rule) from 1965 to 1997. While in office, he formed an authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence, while also maintaining an anti-communist stance.
Mobutu, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo. Mobutu's mother Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape the harem of a local village chief. There she met and married Albéric Gbemani, a cook for a Belgian judge. Shortly she gave birth to Mobutu. The name "Mobutu" was selected by an uncle. Gbemani died when Mobutu was eight.
The wife of the Belgian judge took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read and write fluently. Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support her four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest studies were in Léopoldville, but his mother eventually sent him to an uncle in Coquilhatville, where he attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic mission boarding school. A physically imposing figure, he dominated school sports. He also excelled in academics and ran the class newspaper. He was also known for his pranks and impish sense of humor. A classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, misspoke in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake. In 1949 Mobutu stowed away aboard a boat to Léopoldville and met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later, and at the end of the school year he was sent to the Force Publique (FP), the Belgian Congolese army. Enlistment, which came with a seven-year commitment, was a punishment for rebellious students.
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Mohammad Hatta
Mohammad Hatta (help·info) (12 August 1902 – 14 March 1980) was born in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He was Indonesia's first vice president, later also serving as the country's Prime Minister. Known as "The Proclamator", he and a number of Indonesians, including the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, fought for the independence of Indonesia from the Dutch. Despite his efforts to gain Indonesian independence, he studied in the Netherlands from 1921 until 1932. Moreover, after his early education, he studied in Dutch schools in Indonesia.
Mohammad Hatta is often remembered as Bung Hatta ('Bung' is an affectionate title used to address colleagues, popular in the early 1900s and is still used by Indonesians).
Hatta was born in Bukittinggi on 12 August 1902 into a prominent and strongly Islamic family. His grandfather was a respected ulema in Batuhampar, near Payakumbuh. His father, Haji Mohammad Djamil, died when he was eight months old and he was left with his six sisters and his mother. As in the matrilineal society of Minangkabau tradition, he was then raised in his mother's family. His mother's family was wealthy, and Hatta was able to study Dutch as well as finishing Qur'an after school.
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Mohammad Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq (Persian: محمد مصدق, IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɣ] ( listen)*), also spelled Mossadegh, Mossadeq, Mosadeck, or Musaddiq (16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967), was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until being overthrown in a coup d'état in 1953.
His administration introduced a wide range of social and political reforms but is most notable for its nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC) (later British Petroleum or BP).
Mosaddegh was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953, organised and carried out by the United States CIA at the request of the British MI6 which chose Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Mosaddegh.
The coup is sometimes known as the TPAJAX Project after its CIA cryptonym, however, in Iran it is referred to as the 28 Mordad 1332 coup, after its date on the Iranian calendar., which is incorrect as the Operation's proper name was TPAjax (TP standing for Tudeh Party of Iran the Russian backed communist party of Iran} Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death.
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Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai (February 1947 – 28 September 1996), better known mononymously as Najibullah or Najib, was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Najibullah was born in Gardiz and educated at Kabul University, after which he began his career in the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). He became a member of the Parcham faction led by Babrak Karmal. Following the Saur Revolution Najibullah was a low profile bureaucrat, who was sent into exile during Hafizullah Amin's rise to power as Afghan ambassador to Iran. He returned to Afghanistan following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan which toppled Amin's rule, and placed Karmal as head of state, party and government. During Karmal's rule, Najibullah became head of the KHAD, the Afghan equivalent to the Soviet KGB.
During Najibullah's tenure as KHAD head, it became one of the most efficient governmental organs. Because of this he gained the attention of several leading Soviet officials, such as Yuri Andropov, Dmitriy Ustinov and Boris Ponomarev. In 1981, Najibullah was appointed to the PDPA Politburo. Because of its efficiency, the KHAD was turned into the Ministry of State Security in 1985. On 21 September 1985 Najibullah stepped down as state security minister to focus on PDPA politics; he had just recently been appointed to the PDPA Secretariat. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was able to get Karmal to step down as PDPA General Secretary on 4 May 1986, and replace him with Najibullah. From then, until November, Najibullah was locked in a power struggle against Karmal, who still retained his post of Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. Najibullah accused Karmal of trying to wreck his policy of National Reconciliation.
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Mozambican Civil War
The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after the end of the war of independence. The ruling party, Front for Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the national armed forces FAM (Armed Forces of Mozambique), was violently opposed from 1977 by the Rhodesian- and (later) South African-funded Mozambique Resistance Movement (RENAMO). About 1 000 000 people died in fighting and from starvation, five million civilians were displaced, many were made amputees by landmines, a legacy from the war that continues to plague Mozambique. Fighting ended in 1992 and the country's first multi-party elections were held in 1994.
Mozambican resistance began to surface, as some groups within the Mozambican society eventually started to blame the Portuguese authorities for centuries of exploitation, oppression and neglect.[citation needed] After a successful wave of independence movements in other African territories, cold war powers and the international community started to suggest that Portugal should leave its territories in Africa. Sentiment for Mozambique's own national independence developed and on 25 June 1962 several Mozambican anti-Portuguese political groups formed the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.
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Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي) (June 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi /ˈmoʊ.əmɑr ɡəˈdɑːfi/ (Arabic: مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī audio (help·info)) or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Gaddafi seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 and served as the country's head of state until 1977, when he stepped down from his official executive role as Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya, and claimed subsequently to be merely a symbolic figurehead. He styled himself as "Leader of the Revolution"; in 2008 a meeting of traditional African rulers bestowed on him the title "King of Kings". A leading advocate for a United States of Africa, he served as Chairperson of the African Union (AU) from 2 February 2009 to 31 January 2010.
Gaddafi replaced the Libyan Constitution of 1951 with laws based on the political ideology he had formulated, which he called the Third International Theory and published in The Green Book. After establishing the Jamahiriya (جماهيرية, "state of the masses") system in 1977, he officially stepped down from power and after that time held a largely symbolic role within the country's official governance structure. Rising oil prices and extraction in Libya led to increasing revenues. By exporting as much oil per capita as Saudi Arabia and through various welfare programs, Libya achieved the highest living standards in Africa; Libya remained debt-free.
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Mário Soares
Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL, KE (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmaɾiu suˈaɾɨʃ]; born 7 December 1924), Portuguese politician, served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.
Soares is the son of João Lopes Soares (Leiria, Arrabal, 17 November 1878 - Lisbon, Campo Grande, 31 July 1970), Founder of the Colégio Moderno in Lisbon, Minister and then anti-fascist republican activist who had been a Priest for some time before marrying Elisa Nobre Baptista (Santarém, Pernes, 8 September 1887 - Lisbon, Campo Grande, 28 February 1955), Mário Soares's mother, at the 7th Conservatory of the Civil Register of Lisbon on 5 September 1934. His father also had another son by an unknown mother named Tertuliano Lopes Soares. His mother had previously been married and had two children, J. Nobre Baptista and Cândido Nobre Baptista. Mário Soares was raised as a Roman Catholic, but came to identify himself as a laic, agnostic and atheist.
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Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi (March 9, 1892 – February 5, 1971) was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born Mátyás Rosenfeld in present-day Serbia. He was the de facto ruler of communist Hungary between 1945 and 1956 — first in his capacity as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party (1945–1948) and later as General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party (1948–1956). His rule was aligned with USSR politics during Joseph Stalin's government.
Rákosi was born in Ada, a village in Bács County in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Vojvodina, Serbia). Born into a Jewish family, the fourth son of a grocer (his mother would give birth to seven more children) he later repudiated religion and totally repudiated Judaism.
He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War and was captured on the Eastern Front. After returning to Hungary, he participated in the communist government of Béla Kun; after its fall he fled, eventually to the Soviet Union. After returning to Hungary in 1924 he was imprisoned, and was released to the Soviet Union in 1940, in exchange for the Hungarian revolutionary banners captured by the Russian troops at Világos in 1849. In the Soviet Union, he became leader of the Comintern. He returned to Debrecen, Hungary, on January 30, 1945, sent by Soviet leadership, to organize the Communist Party.
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Ne Win
Ne Win (Burmese: နေဝင်း IPA: [nè wɪ́ɴ]; born on 24 May or 14 May 1911 or 10 July 1910 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander. He was Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974 and also head of state from 1962 to 1981. He also was the founder and from 1962 to 1988 the chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party, which from 1964 until 1988 was the sole political party in the Burmese nation state.
Ne Win's date of birth is not known with certainty. The English language publication Who's Who in Burma published in 1961 by People's Literature House, Rangoon, stated that Ne Win was born on 24 May 1911. Dr. Maung Maung stated in the Burmese version of his book Burma and General Ne Win, also published in English, that Ne Win was born on 14 May 1911. However, in a book written in Burmese titled The Thirty Comrades, the author Kyaw Nyein gave Ne Win's date of birth as 10 July 1910.
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Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm ( listen; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was the first president of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent. A Roman Catholic, Diệm pursued biased and religiously oppressive policies against the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority, epitomized in Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.
Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his U.S. patrons and was assassinated, along with his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on 2 November 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.
Diệm was born in Huế, the original capital of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. His family originated in the central Vietnamese village of Phú Cẩm. Portuguese missionaries had converted his family to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century, so Diệm was given a saint's name at birth, following the custom of the Catholic Church. His full name was Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm. He would often claim that he had descended from a blue-blooded family of mandarins who were so revered that people believed that it was a great honour and good luck to be buried alongside his ancestors. Most historians dismiss this as false and believe that his family were of low rank until his father passed the imperial examinations.[citation needed]
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Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 15 [O.S. April 3] 1894, – September 11, 1971) led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Khrushchev was born in the Russian village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1939, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War II), Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.
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Nikolai Ryzhkov
Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov (Russian: Николай Иванович Рыжков, Nikolaj Ivanovič Ryžkov; born 28 September 1929) was a Soviet official who became a Russian politician following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He served as the last Chairman of the Council of Ministers or Premier of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. Responsible for the cultural and economic administration of the Soviet Union during the late Gorbachev Era, Ryzhkov was succeeded as premier by Valentin Pavlov in 1991. The same year, he lost his seat on the Presidential Council going on to become Boris Yeltsin's leading opponent in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) 1991 presidential election.
Ryzhkov was born in the city of Dzerzhynsk, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1929. After graduating in the 1950s he started work in the 1970s and began his political career in local industry, working his way up through the hierarchy of Soviet industrial ministries. In 1979 Ryzhkov was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee. Following Nikolai Tikhonov's resignation as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Ryzhkov was voted into office in his place. During his tenure, he supported Mikhail Gorbachev's much-needed 1980s reform of the Soviet economy.
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Noboru Takeshita
Noboru Takeshita (竹下 登, Takeshita Noboru?, February 26, 1924 – June 19, 2000) was a Japanese politician and the 74th Prime Minister of Japan from November 6, 1987 to June 3, 1989.
Takeshita was also the last Prime Minister during the long rule of the Emperor Shōwa.
Takeshita was born in present-day Unnan, Shimane and attended Waseda University.
In 1958, he entered the lower house of the Diet of Japan, joining the powerful faction of Kakuei Tanaka in the Liberal Democratic Party. Takeshita eventually became Tanaka's primary fundraiser, traveling the country to garner support for the LDP's coffers. Like Tanaka, Takeshita was fond of "pork barrel" politics, retaining his own seat by bringing excessively huge public works projects to Shimane.
Takeshita served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 1971 to 1974, as Minister of Construction in 1976.
Takeshita served as Minister of Finance from 1979 to 1980; and he again accepted the finance position from 1982 to 1986. In this period, he achieved prominence as Japan's negotiator during deliberations which led to the agreement which is known as the Plaza Accord in New York.
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Nobusuke Kishi
Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介, Kishi Nobusuke?, November 13, 1896 – August 7, 1987) was a Japanese politician and the 56th and 57th Prime Minister of Japan from February 25, 1957 to June 12, 1958 and from then to July 19, 1960. He was called[who?]Shōwa no yōkai (昭和の妖怪 "the Shōwa era ghost/monster").
Kishi was born Nobusuke Satō in Tabuse, Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, but left his family at a young age to move in with the more affluent Kishi family, adopting their family name. His biological younger brother, Eisaku Satō, would also go on to become a prime minister.
Kishi attended Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) and entered the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 1920. In 1935, he became one of the top officials involved in the industrial development of Manchukuo, where he was later accused of exploiting Chinese forced labor. Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō, himself a veteran of the Manchurian campaign, appointed Kishi Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1941, and he held this position until Japan's surrender in 1945. He was also elected to the Lower House of the Diet of Japan in 1942.
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Norman Bethune
Henry Norman Bethune (March 4, 1890 – November 12, 1939; Chinese name: 白求恩; pinyin: Bái Qiúēn) was a Canadian physician and medical innovator. Bethune is best known for his service in war time medical units during the Spanish Civil War and with the Communist Eighth Route Army (Ba Lu Jun) during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He developed the first mobile blood-transfusion service in Spain in 1936. A Communist, he wrote that wars were motivated by profits, not principles.
Dr. Norman Bethune came from a prominent Scottish Canadian family. His great great grandfather, the Reverend John Bethune (1751–1815), was the family patriarch and established the first Presbyterian Church in Montreal. Norman Bethune’s great grandfather, Angus Bethune (1783–1858), joined the North West Company at an early age and travelled extensively throughout the north western territories, exploring and trading for furs. He eventually reached the Pacific at Fort Astoria, Oregon. He became chief factor of the Lake Huron district for the Hudson's Bay Company after the merger of the rival companies. Upon retirement from the HBC in 1839 he successfully ran for Alderman of Toronto City Council.
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Nur Misuari
Nur Misuari (Bahasa Sūg: Nūr Miswāri) (born in 1942 in Jolo, Sulu, Philippines) is a Moro politician and former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front. He completed his education through academic scholarships at the University of the Philippines and became a student activist. Misuari was a lecturer at the University of the Philippines in political science and in the 1960s, he established the Mindanao Independence Movement which aimed to organize an independent state in southern Philippines. The Mindanao Independence Movement formed the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that sought political reforms from the Government of the Philippines. Unable to gain reforms, the MNLF engaged in military conflict against the Philippine government and its supporters between 1972 to 1976 under the leadership of Misuari. The military resistance to the government of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos did not produce autonomy for the Moro people. He departed to Saudi Arabia in exile. He returned to the Philippines after Marcos was removed from office during the People Power Revolution in 1986.
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Nur Muhammad Taraki
Nur Muhammad Taraki (15 July 1917, or 1913 – 14 September 1979) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Taraki was born near Kabul and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his political career as a journalist. He later became one of the founding members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and was elected as the party's General Secretary at its first congress. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election but failed to secure himself a seat. In 1966 he published the first issue of Khalq, a party newspaper, but it was closed down shortly afterwards by the Afghan Government. The assassination of Mir Akbar Khyber led Taraki, along with Hafizullah Amin (the organiser of the revolution) and Babrak Karmal, to initiate the Saur Revolution and establish the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
The presidency of Taraki, albeit short-lived, was marked by controversies from beginning to end. Taraki launched a land reform on 1 January 1978 which proved to be highly unpopular and, along with his government's other reforms, led to a popular backlash which initiated the Afghan civil war. Despite repeated attempts throughout his reign, Taraki proved unable to persuade the Soviet Union to intervene in support of the restoration of civil order.
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Omar Torrijos
Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera (February 13, 1929 – July 31, 1981) was the Commander of the Panamanian and National Guard and the de facto leader of Panama from 1968 to 1981. Torrijos was never officially the president of Panama, but instead held titles including "Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution" and "Supreme Chief of Government." Although he was considered a leftist dictator, he simultaneously had the support of the United States as he opposed communism. His politics were based instead on progressivism.
Torrijos is best known for negotiating the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties that eventually gave Panama full sovereignty over the Panama Canal, at noon on December 31, 1999. His son Martín Torrijos was elected president and served from 2004 to 2009.
Torrijos was born in Santiago in the province of Veraguas, the sixth of twelve children. His father, José Maria Torrijos, was originally from Colombia, and was employed as a teacher. He was educated at the local Juan Demóstenes Arosemena School and won a scholarship to the military academy in San Salvador. He graduated with a commission as a second lieutenant. He joined the Panamanian army, the National Guard (Guardia Nacional), in 1952. He was promoted to captain in 1956 and took a cadet course at the School of the Americas in 1965.
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Palmiro Togliatti
Palmiro Togliatti (Italian pronunciation: [palˈmiro toʎˈʎatti]; 26 March 1893 - 21 August 1964) was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death.
Born in Genoa to a middle class family, Togliatti began his political life in the Italian Socialist Party prior to the First World War. He served as a volunteer officer during the war, and was wounded in action and sent home for illness. Returning at the end of the conflict, he was a part of the group around Antonio Gramsci's L'Ordine Nuovo paper in Turin, while working as a tutor.
He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I, later PCI) and, after Gramsci was jailed by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, he became the senior leader of the PCd'I until his death, for which he also directed Il Comunista.
When the party was banned by the Italian Fascist government in 1926, Togliatti was one of few leaders not to be arrested, as he was attending a meeting of the Comintern in Moscow. In exile during the late 1920s and the 1930s, he organized clandestine meetings of the PCd'I at Lyon (1926) and Cologne (1931). In 1927 he took the position of Secretary of the party.
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Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only twelve weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and executed by firing squad, an act that was committed with the assistance of the government of Belgium, for which the Belgian government officially apologized in 2002.
Lumumba was born in Onalua in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo, a member of the Tetela ethnic group. Raised in a Catholic family as one of four sons, he was educated at a Protestant primary school, a Catholic missionary school, and finally the government post office training school, passing the one-year course with distinction. He subsequently worked in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Stanleyville (now Kisangani) as a postal clerk and as a travelling beer salesman. In 1951, he married Pauline Opangu. In 1955, Lumumba became regional head of the Cercles of Stanleyville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium, where he worked on editing and distributing party literature. After traveling on a three-week study tour in Belgium, he was arrested in 1955 on charges of embezzlement of post office funds. His two-year sentence was commuted to twelve months after it was confirmed by Belgian lawyer Jules Chrome that Lumumba had returned the funds, and he was released in July 1956. After his release, he helped found the broad-based Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958, later becoming the organization's president. Lumumba and his team represented the MNC at the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958. At this international conference, hosted by influential Pan-African President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lumumba further solidified his Pan-Africanist beliefs.
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Peng Dehuai
Peng Dehuai (simplified Chinese: 彭德怀; traditional Chinese: 彭德懷; pinyin: Péng Déhuái; Wade–Giles: P'eng Te-huai) (October 24, 1898 – November 29, 1974) was a prominent Chinese Communist military leader, and China's Defense Minister, from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into a poor peasant family, and received several years of primary education before his family's poverty forced him to suspend his education at the age of ten, and to work for several years as a manual laborer. When he was sixteen, Peng became a professional soldier. Over the next ten years Peng served in the armies of several Hunan-based warlord armies, raising himself from the rank of private second class to major. In 1926 Peng's forces joined the Kuomintang, and Peng was first introduced to communism. Peng participated in the Northern Expedition, and supported Wang Jingwei's attempt to form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang was defeated, Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-shek's forces before joining the Chinese Communist Party, allying himself with Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
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Peng Zhen
Peng Zhen (pronounced [pʰə̌ŋ tʂə́n]; October 12, 1902 – April 26, 1997) was a leading member of the Communist Party of China. He led the party organization in Beijing following the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, but was purged during the Cultural Revolution for opposing Mao's views on the role of literature in relation to the state. He was rehabilitated under Deng Xiaoping in 1982 along with other 'wrongly accused' officials, and became the inaugural head of the CPC Central Political and Legislative Committee.
Born in Houma (a town in Shanxi province), Peng was originally named Fu Maogong. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1923 as a founding member of the Shanxi Province CP. Arrested in 1929, he continued underground political activities while imprisoned. He was released from prison in 1935 and began organizing a resistance movement against the invading Japanese forces. Around the same time, he was appointed the Organization Department Director of the North Bureau of CPC. He also served on a number of positions as vice-president of the Central Party School and director of the CPC Policy Research Office. In 1945 he served in the history research committee and the organizing committee of the Communist Party's 7th National Congress. He is credited with substantial efforts towards the 1948 capture of Beijing by Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War.
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Philip Short
Philip Short (born 17 April 1945) is a journalist and author.
He was born in Bristol on 17 April 1945. He studied at Queens' College, Cambridge. After graduation, he spent from 1967 to 1973 as a freelance journalist, first in Malawi, then in Uganda. He then joined the BBC as a foreign correspondent. He worked there for 25 years. He is the author of several books, among them the biographies of Mao Zedong, Mao: A Life, and Pol Pot, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare.
He presented a TV documentary on Mao Zedong entitled "Mao's Bloody Revolution Revealed" on the UK Terrestrial station Five in May 2007.
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Pierre Mulele
Pierre Mulele (August 11, 1929, Isulu-Matende - October 3 [or October 9, depending on the source], 1968) was a Congolese rebel who was briefly minister of education in Patrice Lumumba's cabinet. With the assassination of Lumumba in January 1961 and the arrest of his recognised deputy Antoine Gizenga one year later, Mulele became one of the top Lumumbists determined to continue the struggle. He went to Cairo, Egypt as the representative of the Lumumbists' Congo National Liberation Committee based in Brazzaville. From Cairo he proceeded to China in 1963 to receive military training, and also took a group of Congolese youths with him, who received training in guerrilla tactics. He was member of the Bapende ethnic group.
In January 1964, a new conflict broke out as Congolese rebels calling themselves "Simba" (Swahili for "Lion") rebelled against the government. They were led by Mulele, Gaston Soumialot and Christophe Gbenye, who were former members of Gizenga's Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA). During the Simba rebellions, Mulele, who had previously undergone training in the Eastern bloc as well as Red China, led a Maoist faction in the Kwilu District. This came to be known as the Kwilu Rebellion. Mulele was an avowed Maoist, and for this reason his insurgency was supported by communist China. By the end of April 1964, Mulele's rebellion had been rendered somewhat less dangerous by the government. The USSR, with an embassy in the national capital of Leopoldville, did not support Mulele's Kwilu revolt and had no part in its preparation: lack of support from the Soviets was in the first place responsible for Mulele turning to China as his patron.
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Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau CC, CH, PC, QC, FSRC ( /truːˈdoʊ/; French pronunciation: [tʁydo]; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.
Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals, but he eventually joined the Liberal Party of Canada when he entered federal politics in the 1960s. He was appointed as Lester Pearson's Parliamentary Secretary, and later became his Minister of Justice. From his base in Montreal, Trudeau took control of the Liberal Party and became a charismatic leader, inspiring "Trudeaumania". From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, he dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions. "Reason before passion" was his personal motto. He retired from politics in 1984, and John Turner succeeded him as Prime Minister.
Admirers praise the force of Trudeau's intellect and they salute his political acumen in preserving national unity against Quebec separatists, suppressing a violent revolt, and establishing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within Canada's constitution. Critics accuse him of arrogance, economic mismanagement, and unduly favouring the federal government relative to the provinces, especially in trying to control the oil wealth of the Prairies.
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Pol Pot
Saloth Sar (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998), better known as Pol Pot (Khmer: ប៉ុល ពត), was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia on April 17, 1975. During his time in power he imposed agrarian socialism, forcing urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects. The combined effects of forced labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of approximately 21% of the Cambodian population. In all, an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died as a result of the policies of his three-year premiership.
In 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Pol Pot fled to the jungles of southwest Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge government collapsed. From 1979 to 1997, he and a remnant of the old Khmer Rouge operated near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where they clung to power, with nominal United Nations recognition as the rightful government of Cambodia. Pol Pot died in 1998 while under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge. Since his death, rumours that he was poisoned have persisted.
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Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920, Wadowice, Republic of Poland – 2 April 2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.
John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.
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Prachanda
Puspa Kamal Dahal (Nepali: पुष्पकमल दाहाल, born Chhabilal Dahal on 11 December 1954, also known as Prachanda (Nepali: प्रचण्ड [pɾətsəɳɖə] is a former guerrilla leader and chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN). Prachanda led the CPN (M) as it launched an insurgency on 13 February 1996. In 2008 the ensuing civil war culminated in the overthrow of the Shah dynasty in favor of a communist leadership. More than 15,000 Nepalese died in this conflict.
The Constituent Assembly elected Prachanda Prime Minister of Nepal on 16 August 2008. He was sworn in as Prime Minister on 18 August, 2008. Prachanda resigned from the post on 4 May, 2009 after his attempt to sack the army chief, General Rookmangud Katawal, was opposed by President Ram Baran Yadav. Prachanda remained in office until 23 May, 2009, when his successor was elected.
Prachanda was born in Dhikur Pokhari, a village in Kaski District, some 140 kilometres (87 mi) west of Nepal's capital Kathmandu. Prachanda spent much of his childhood in Chitwan District. He is from a landlord family. He received a diploma of Science in Agriculture (ISc-Ag) from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS) in Rampur, Chitwan, and was once employed at a rural development project sponsored by USAID: the project site was Jajarkot. Prachanda's brother, Dr. Ganga Ram Dahal, graduated from the University of Reading, UK and is currently a Research Scientist at 'Rights to Resources International' based in Bangkok.
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Qian Xuantong
Qian Xuantong (1887—January 17, 1939) was a Chinese linguist.
Born in Huzhou, Zhejiang, Qian was named Qian Xia at birth and was given the courtesy name Deqian (德潜). Qian trained in traditional Chinese philology. After receiving his university education in Japan, Qian held a number of teaching positions in mainland China. He was a student of Zhang Binglin; some of Zhang's works were copied and printed in Qian's remarkable seal script handwriting. As a philologist, Qian was the first to reconstruct the vowel system of Old Chinese in IPA.
A close friend of Lu Xun, Qian was a key figure in the May Fourth Movement. Despite his close relationship with the Chinese classics, he promoted the abolition of classical Chinese. He was also a strong supporter of Esperanto, at one time even proposed the substitution of Chinese by it. He and Liu Bannong did their best to promote vernacular Chinese, attacking such classical Chinese stylists as Lin Shu. His skepticism of the Chinese heritage was such that he at one time wanted to change his surname to Yi Gu (疑古 "suspecting things ancient"). He also did much important work with regards to the standardization of Simplified Chinese characters, Mandarin, and the design of pinyin.
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Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) (259 BC – 210 BC), personal name Ying Zheng (嬴政), was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC. He ruled until his death in 210 BC at the age of 49.
Calling himself the First Emperor (Chinese: 始皇帝) after China's unification, Qin Shi Huang is a pivotal figure in Chinese history, ushering nearly two millennia of imperial rule. After unifying China, he and his chief advisor Li Si passed a series of major economic and political reforms. He undertook gigantic projects, including building and unifying various sections of the Great Wall of China, the now famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of numerous lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed and burned many books and buried some scholars alive.
From the beginning of the Zhou dynasty in 1045 BC to the time of the First Emperor, rulers of the Chinese states were titled Wang (Chinese: 王), a term that originally meant "big man" but later came to mean "chief" or "king". Following his defeat of the last of the Warring States in 221 BC, King Zheng of Qin became de facto ruler of all China. To celebrate this achievement and consolidate his power base, King Zheng created a new title calling himself the First Sovereign Emperor of Qin (Chinese: 秦始皇帝; pinyin: Qín Shǐ Huángdì; Wade–Giles: Ch'in Shih Huang-ti), often shortened to Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇; pinyin: Qín Shǐ Huáng; Wade–Giles: Ch'in Shih-Huang).
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Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War – also known as the Second Chimurenga or the Zimbabwe War of Liberation – was a civil war which took place between July 1964 and December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia (latterly Zimbabwe Rhodesia). The conflict pitted three forces against one another: on one side was the Rhodesian government, under Ian Smith (later the Zimbabwe Rhodesian government under Abel Muzorewa), on another was the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the military wing of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union, and on the third was the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union.
The war and its subsequent Internal Settlement, signed in 1978 by Smith and Muzorewa, led to the implementation in June 1979 of universal suffrage and end of white minority rule in Rhodesia, which was renamed Zimbabwe Rhodesia under a black majority government. However, this new order failed to win international recognition and the war continued. Negotiations between the government of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, the British government and Mugabe and Nkomo's united "Patriotic Front" took place at Lancaster House, London in December 1979, and the Lancaster House Agreement was signed. The country returned temporarily to British control and new elections were held under British and Commonwealth supervision in March 1980. ZANU won the election and Mugabe became the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on 18 April 1980, when the country achieved internationally-recognised independence.
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Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate work at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937, and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife, Pat Nixon, moved to Washington to work for the federal government in 1942. He subsequently served in the United States Navy during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. In 1968, he ran again for the presidency and was elected.
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Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Following that, he served as President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.
Prior to public service, McNamara was one of the "Whiz Kids" who helped rebuild Ford Motor Company after World War II, and briefly served as Ford's President before becoming Secretary of Defense.
Robert McNamara was born in San Francisco, California. His father was Robert James McNamara, sales manager of a wholesale shoe company. His mother was Clara Nell Strange McNamara. His father's family was Irish and in about 1850, following the Great Irish Famine, had emigrated to Massachusetts and later to California. He graduated from Piedmont High School in Piedmont, California in 1933 where he was president of the Rigma Lions boys club and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics with minors in mathematics and philosophy. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his sophomore year and earned a varsity letter in crew. He was also a member of the UC Berkeley's Order of the Golden Bear which was a fellowship of students and leading faculty members formed to promote leadership within the student body. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1939.
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Roderick MacFarquhar
Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar (born 2 December 1930) is a Harvard University professor and China specialist, British politician, newspaper and television journalist and academic orientalist. He served briefly as a Member of Parliament.
MacFarquhar is the son of Sir Alexander MacFarquhar, a member of the Indian Civil Service and later a senior diplomat at the United Nations where he eventually became Under Secretary for Personnel.
He was born in Lahore, Pakistan and educated at the leading Scottish public school, Fettes College.
After spending part of his national service from 1949 to 1950 in Egypt and Jordan as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Tank Regiment, he went up to Keble College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, obtaining a BA in 1953. He then went on to obtain a Master's degree from Harvard University in Far Eastern Regional Studies in 1955.
He worked as a journalist on the staff of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph from 1955 to 1961 specialising in China, and also reported for BBC television Panorama from 1963 to 1964. He was editor of China Quarterly from 1959 to 1968, and a non-resident Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford from 1965 to 1968. In 1969 he was a Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University in New York City, and in 1971 he returned to England to hold a similar fellowship at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He was also the founding co-presenter of BBC World Service "24 Hours" in 1971.
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Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( /ˈrɒnəld ˈwɪlsən ˈreɪɡən/; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor.
Born in Tampico, Illinois and raised in Dixon, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology. After his graduation, Reagan moved first to Iowa to work as a radio broadcaster and then in to Los Angeles in 1937 where he began a career as an actor, first in films and later television. Some of his most notable films include Knute Rockne, All American, Kings Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later as a spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, his positions began shifting rightward in the late 1950s, and he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and general election in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter.
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Ross Terrill
Ross Terrill born in Melbourne is an Australian academic, historian and journalist, residing in the United States. Terrill specializes in the history of China, especially the modern People's Republic of China. He has appeared several times to testify in front of the United States Congress, and has written numerous articles and nine books. For many years he has been Research Associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and recently been visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin and at Monash University in Australia [1].
His many books include:
Dr. Terril received his Ph.D. in political science in 1970 from Harvard University, his Dux of College from Wesley College, Melbourne in 1956, and in 1962, his Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours from the in 1962. He served in the Australian Army from 1957-1958.
His Home Page
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Ruhollah Khomeini
Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (روحاللّه مصطفوی موسوی خمینی, Persian pronunciation: [ruːholˈlɑːhe muːsæˈviːje xomeiˈniː], 22 or 24 September 1902 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader — a position created in the constitution as the highest ranking political and religious authority of the nation – until his death.
Khomeini was a marja ("source of emulation") in Twelver Shi'a Islam, author of more than forty books, but is primarily known for his political activities. He spent more than 15 years in exile for his opposition to the last Shah. In his writings and preachings he expanded the Shi'a Usuli theory of velayat-e faqih, the "guardianship of the jurisconsult (clerical authority)" to include theocratic political rule by the Islamic jurists. This principle (though not known to the wider public before the revolution) was installed in the new Iranian constitution after being put to a referendum.
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Rómulo Betancourt
Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was President of Venezuela from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Accion Democratica, Venezuela's dominant political party in the 20th century. He survived an assassination attempt ordered by Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic. Betancourt, one of Venezuela's most important political figures, led a tumultuous and highly controversial career in Latin American politics. Periods of exile brought Betancourt in contact with various Latin American countries as well as the United States, securing his legacy as one of the few real international leaders to emerge from 20th-century Latin America. Scholars credit Betancourt as the Founding Father of modern democratic Venezuela.
Rómulo Betancourt was born in Guatire, a town near Caracas, son of Luis Betancourt Bello (from Canary origins) and Venezuelan Virginia Bello Milano, being the middle brother between his older sister Teresa and younger sister Helena. Living along with his maternal grandmother Maria Milano Bello and his uncle Luis Bello Milano.
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Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.
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Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid (1926 – 19 August 1993, Arabic: صلاح جديد) was a Syrian general and political figure in the Arab Socialist Baath Party in Syria, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970.
Jadid was born in 1926 in the village of Duwayr B'abda, near the coastal city of Jableh, which in turn was close to Lattakia, to a Alawite family. He studied at the Homs Military Academy, and entered the Syrian Army in 1946. Jadid was originally a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), but later became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, in the 1950s through an associate of Akram al-Hawrani. Even so, Jadid remained close to the SNPP; his brother, Ghassan, was one of its most prominent members in Syria. He changed allegiance again in the 1950s, when he became a member of the Arab Liberation Movement, a party supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideological beliefs. Jadid supported Syria's ascension into the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union republic consisting of Egypt and Syria.
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Salgueiro Maia
Fernando José Salgueiro Maia, GOTE, GCL (born July 1, 1944 in Castelo de Vide, Portugal; died April 4, 1992 in Santarém), commonly known just by Salgueiro Maia (Portuguese pronunciation: [saɫˈɡɐjɾu ˈmajɐ]) was a captain of the Portuguese army. He made a significant contribution to the Carnation Revolution, which resulted in the fall of the then ruling dictatorship.
Salgueiro Maia was one of the captains of the Portuguese Army who led the revolutionary forces during the Carnation Revolution. He was a son of Francisco da Luz Maia, a railway worker, and Francisca Silvéria Salgueiro. He attended the Primary School in São Torcato, Coruche, and would later relocate to Tomar where he studied at Colégio Nun'Álvares, but would finish his Secondary School education in the National Liceu of Leiria. Maia later graduated in Social and Political Sciences and Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences.
In 1983 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty; in 1992, posthumously, the degree of Grand Officer of the Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit; and in 2007, the Gold Medal of the city of Santarém.
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Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens (Spanish pronunciation: [salβaˈðoɾ aˈʝende ˈɣosens]; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America.
Allende's involvement in Chilean political life spanned a period of nearly forty years. As a member of the Socialist Party, he was a senator, deputy and cabinet minister. He unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency in a close three-way race, formally elected by Congress as no candidate had gained a majority.
Allende adopted the policy of nationalization of industries and collectivization. On 11 September 1973 the military, citing a call by the Chilean Congress to end his presidency, staged a coup against Allende. As the armed forces surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his last speech vowing not to resign, and committed suicide thereafter. After Allende's ouster, Chile was led by a military junta, and then as a dictatorship by General Augusto Pinochet.
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Samir Amin
Samir Amin (Arabic: سمير أمين) (born 3 September 1931) is an Egyptian economist. He lives in Dakar, Senegal.
Samir Amin was born in Cairo, the son of an Egyptian father and a French mother (both medical doctors). He spent his childhood and youth in Port Said; there he attended a French High School, leaving in 1947 with a Baccalauréat. From 1947 to 1957 he studied in Paris, gaining a diploma in political science (1952) before graduating in statistics (1956) and economics (1957). In his autobiography Itinéraire intellectuel (1990) he wrote that in order to spend a substantial amount of time in "militant action" he could devote only a minimum of time to preparing for his university exams.
Arriving in Paris, Amin joined the French Communist Party (PCF), but he later distanced himself from Soviet Marxism and associated himself for some time with Maoist circles. With other students he published a magazine entitled;Étudiants Anticolonialistes. In 1957 he presented his thesis, supervised by François Perroux among others, originally titled The origins of underdevelopment - capitalist accumulation on a world scale but retitled The structural effects of the international integration of precapitalist economies. A theoretical study of the mechanism which creates so-called underdeveloped economies.
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Shao Hua
Shao Hua (30 October 1938 - June 24, 2008), formerly known as Zhang Shao Hua (张少华), born Chen Anyun (陈安云), was a Chinese photographer and a major general in the People's Liberation Army. Shao was the daughter-in-law of the late Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and the wife of Mao's second son, Mao Anqing, who had died in 2007.
Shao was born in October 1938 in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, a former base for Mao Zedong's Communist army following the Long March. Her father was Chen Zhenhua, who was from Shimin, Hunan. Her mother was Zhang Wenqiu, who was from Jingshan County, Hubei.
Shao began working as a photographer during the 1950s using a camera which had been brought to her from the Soviet Union by Mao Zedong's eldest son, Mao Anying. She traveled extensively throughout China following the Chinese Civil War. The subjects of her photographs were often related to the government of the Communist movement, including factories and other factors of production, army units, schools, and poor rural Chinese villages. She became the head of the China Photographers Association (CPA) in 2002 and served in that position until her death in 2008.
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Shigeru Yoshida
Shigeru Yoshida (吉田 茂, Yoshida Shigeru?) (September 22, 1878 – October 20, 1967) was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954.
Yoshida was born in Yokosuka near Tokyo and educated at Tokyo Imperial University. He entered Japan's diplomatic corps in 1906 just after Japan's victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. He was Japan's ambassador to Italy and the United Kingdom during the 1930s and finally retired from his last appointment as ambassador to London in 1938. Throughout the 1930s and before the war ended in the 1940s, Yoshida continued to participate in Japan's imperialist movement. After several months' imprisonment in 1945, he became one of Japan's key postwar leaders.
Yoshida became the 45th prime minister on May 22, 1946. His pro-American and pro-British ideals and his knowledge of Western societies, gained through education and political work abroad are what made him the perfect candidate in the eyes of the postwar Allied occupation. He is de facto the last prime minister of the Empire of Japan, before it was abolished following the signing of the constitution.
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Siad Barre
Mohamed Siad Barre (Somali: Maxamed Siyaad Barre, Arabic: محمّد زياد بري) (October 6, 1919 – January 2, 1995) was the military dictator and President of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 to 1991. During his rule, he styled himself as Jaalle Siyaad ("Comrade Siad").
At the time of independence in 1960, Somalia was touted in the West as the model of a democracy in Africa. However, clanism and extended family loyalties and conflicts were social problems the civilian government failed to eradicate and eventually succumbed to itself.
The Barre-led military junta that came to power after a coup d'état in 1969 said it would adapt scientific socialism to the needs of Somalia. It drew heavily from the traditions of China. Volunteer labour harvested and planted crops, and built roads and hospitals. Almost all industry, banks and businesses were nationalised, and cooperative farms were promoted. The government forbade clanism and stressed loyalty to the central authorities. A new writing script for the Somali language was also adopted. To spread the new language and the methods and message of the revolution, secondary schools were closed in 1974 and 25,000 students from fourteen to sixteen years of age and an additional 3,000 military and civil service employees were sent to rural areas to educate their nomadic relatives.
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Sidney Rittenberg
Sidney Rittenberg (Chinese: 李敦白; pinyin: Lǐ Dūnbái; born August 14, 1921) is an American journalist, Chinese-English interpreter, and scholar who lived in China from 1944 to 1979. He worked closely with People's Republic of China (PRC) founder Mao Zedong, military leader Zhu De, statesman Zhou Enlai, and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the war, and was with these central Communist leaders at Yan'an. He witnessed first-hand much of what occurred at upper levels of the CCP and knew many of its leaders personally. Later, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement, twice, for a total of 16 years. He was the first American citizen to join the CCP.
Rittenberg's connections and experience have enabled him to run a successful consultancy business representing some of the world’s biggest brands, such as Intel, Levi Strauss, Microsoft, Hughes Aircraft and Teledesic.
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Siraj Sikder
Siraj Sikder was a revolutionary leader of Bangladesh.
Siraj Sikder was born on 27 October 1944 at Bhedarganj in Shariatpur District. After passing the matriculation examination from Barisal Zilla School in 1959, he was admitted into Barisal Brojomohun College in 1961 for I.Sc. He obtained an engineering degree from the Dhaka Engineering University in 1967.
During his student life he was a very active member of East Pakistan Student Union. He was elected vice president of the central committee of Student Union (Menon group) in 1967. In the same year he joined the C & B Department of the government as an engineer, but within three months left the job to join a private company named Engineering Limited in Teknaf.
On 8 January 1968, along with like-minded activists, he formed a clandestine organisation named Purba Bangla Sramik Andolon]] (East Bengal Workers Movement-EBWM) with an objective to lead a struggle against the revisionism of the existing "Communist" organizations and to form a revolutionary Communist Party. This initiative brought forward a thesis that East Bengal is a colony of Pakistan and the principal contradiction in the society is between the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and feudals of Pakistan and people of East Bengal. Only the independence struggle to form a "independent, democratic, peaceful, non-aligned, progressive" People's Republic of East Bengal, free also from the oppression of US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and Indian Expansionism could lead the society forward towards socialism and communism. (See the Thesis of EBWM, 1968). In late 1968, Siraj Sikder left the job to establish the Mao Tse Tung Research Center in Dhaka but it was later closed down by the Pakistan government. In February 1970, Siraj Sikder joined the Technical Training College in Dhaka as a lecturer.
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Stéphane Courtois
Stéphane Courtois (born November 25, 1947) is a French historian, an internationally known expert on communist studies, particularly the history of communism and communist genocides, and author of several books. The Black Book of Communism, a book edited by Courtois, has been translated into numerous languages, sold million of copies and is considered a standard work on communist genocides.
Courtois is a research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, in the Géode (group of study and observation of democracy) at Paris West University Nanterre La Défense, as well as a Professor at the Catholic Institute of Higher Studies – ICES. He is editor of the journal Communisme, which he co-founded with Annie Kriegel in 1982, and part of the Cercle de l'Oratoire think tank.
As a student, from 1968 to 1971, Courtois was a Maoist, although he later became an outspoken anti-communist and a strong supporter of democracy, pluralism, human rights, and Rechtsstaat.
Courtois argues that communism and national socialism are slightly different totalitarian systems, and that communism is responsible for the murder of around 100 million people in the 20th century. He also argues that the National Socialists adopted their repressive methods from Soviet methods. According to Courtois, "a single-minded focus on the Jewish genocide in an attempt to characterize the Holocaust as a unique atrocity has [...] prevented the assessment of other episodes of comparable magnitude in the Communist world".
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Suharto
Suharto (help·info) (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was the second President of Indonesia, having held the office for 31 years from 1967 following Sukarno's removal until his resignation in 1998.
Suharto was born in a small village, Kemusuk, in the Godean area near Yogyakarta, during the Dutch colonial era. He grew up in humble circumstances. His Javanese peasant parents divorced not long after his birth, and he was passed between foster parents for much of his childhood. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's independence struggle saw him joining the newly formed Indonesian army. Suharto rose to the rank of Major General following Indonesian independence. An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 was countered by Suharto-led troops and was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party. The army subsequently led an anti-communist purge, and Suharto wrested power from Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. He was appointed acting president in 1967 and President the following year. Support for Suharto's presidency was strong throughout the 1970s and 1980s but eroded following a severe financial crisis that led to widespread unrest and his resignation in May 1998. Suharto died in 2008.
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Sukarno
Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was the first President of Indonesia.
Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967. He was replaced by one of his generals, Suharto (see Transition to the New Order), and remained under house arrest until his death.
The spelling "Sukarno" is frequently used in English as it is based on the newer official spelling in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling Soekarno, based on Dutch orthography, is still frequently used, mainly because he signed his name in the old spelling. Official Indonesian presidential decrees from the period 1947–1968, however, printed his name using the 1947 spelling. The Soekarno–Hatta International Airport which serves near Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia for example, still uses the older spelling.
Indonesians also remember him as Bung Karno or Pak Karno. Like many Javanese people, he had only one name; in religious contexts, he was occasionally referred to as "Achmed Sukarno". The name Soekarno means "Good Karna" in Javanese.
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Syngman Rhee
Syngman Rhee or Yi Seungman (Hangul: 이승만; Hanja: 李承晩; Korean pronunciation: [i sɯŋman]; March 26, 1875 – July 19, 1965) was the first president of South Korea. His presidency, from August 1948 to April 1960, remains controversial, affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere.
Rhee was regarded as an anti-Communist and a strongman, and he led South Korea through the Korean War. His presidency ended in resignation following popular protests against a disputed election. He died in exile in Hawaii.
Syngman Rhee was born on March 26, 1875 into a rural family of modest means in Hwanghae Province, Korea. Rhee was the youngest of five siblings, though his elder brothers died prematurely. Rhee's family traced its lineage back to the third king of the Chosŏn Dynasty. When Rhee was two years old, the family moved to Seoul. His early education involved primarily classic Chinese literature; though he attempted civil service examinations, he failed them multiple times. When reforms abolished traditional systems of education, Rhee enrolled in Paejae School, an institution which had been established by a missionary from the United States. Rhee learned English and began a school newspaper, Maeil Sinmun.
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Sōsuke Uno
Sōsuke Uno (宇野 宗佑, Uno Sōsuke?, August 27, 1922 – May 19, 1998) was a Japanese politician and the 75th Prime Minister of Japan from June 3, 1989 to August 10, 1989.
He was born in Shiga Prefecture and attended the Kobe University of Commerce. After serving in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, he entered politics, winning election to the Diet of Japan in 1960.
Uno's main action as prime minister was to institute the country's first consumption tax, which immediately caused an uproar among many voters and led to the Japan Socialist Party's victory in the Tokyo metropolitan legislative election of 1989. Uno's government was also hurt by repercussive effects from the Recruit Scandal of 1988. Uno assumed office on June 3, 1989.
Uno eventually had to resign after less than three months amid a sex scandal revealed by a geisha.[citation needed] The controversy surrounding Uno's extramarital affair was more focused on irresponsibility rather than immorality; Uno supposedly did not support his mistress, at the least not with an appropriate amount, which led her to complain publicly. The story was not widely publicized in Japan until a Washington Post reporter picked up the story from the Mainichi Shimbun, bringing international attention to Uno.
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Takeo Fukuda
Takeo Fukuda (福田 赳夫, Fukuda Takeo?, January 14, 1905 – July 5, 1995) was a Japanese politician and the 42d Prime Minister of Japan (67th administration) from December 24, 1976 to December 7, 1978.
He was born in Gunma Prefecture and attended Tokyo Imperial University. Before and during World War II, he served as a bureaucrat in the Finance Ministry and as Chief Cabinet Secretary. After the war, he directed Japan's general accounting office.
In 1952, Fukuda was elected to the House of Representatives representing the third district of Gunma. He was elected party secretary in 1957 and served as Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (1959–69), Minister of Finance (1969–71), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1971–73), and Director of the Economic Planning Agency (1974–76). He was a candidate for prime minister in 1972 but lost to Kakuei Tanaka.
He took over the presidency of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from Takeo Miki after the party's poor showing in the 1976 election. It remained in office, but relied on the support of minor parties to maintain a parliamentary majority. Although he was regarded as a conservative and a hawk on foreign policies, Fukuda drew international criticism when he caved in to the demands of a group of terrorists who hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 472, saying "Jinmei wa chikyû yori omoi (The value of a human life outweighs the Earth)."
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Takeo Miki
Takeo Miki (三木 武夫, Miki Takeo?, March 17, 1907 – November 4, 1988) was a Japanese politician and the 41st Prime Minister of Japan.
Born in Awa, Tokushima, Miki graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo. He attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in law from the institution in 1966.
Miki was elected to the Diet in 1937 and remained there until his death in 1988, during which he was elected a representative for 19 times over 51 years. He took over from Kakuei Tanaka as Prime Minister on December 9, 1974, following the latter's implication in the corruptions concerning real-estate and construction companies. Miki's attraction was particularly due his reputed political cleanness, and his weak power base from his small faction. In fact, he was not prepared to be prime minister at all, as was reflected when upon his election he murmured "a bolt from the blue".
After being elected, Miki attempted to reform the LDP, relentlessly investigating the Lockheed bribery scandals, which made him a large number of enemies within the party. A campaign literally called "Down with Miki" ("Miki oroshi") was started by influential faction leaders. Despite Miki's personal popularity with the public, the Lockheed scandal reflected poorly on the party, which lost its overall majority in the 1976 election to the Diet and had to make deals with minor parties to remain in power. Embarrassed by the result, Miki resigned and was succeeded on December 24, 1976, by Takeo Fukuda.
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Todor Zhivkov
Todor Hristov Zhivkov (Bulgarian: Тодор Христов Живков); IPA: [ˈtɔdɔr ˈxristɔf ˈʒifkɔf]) (7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was the communist president of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989.
He became First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954 and remained on this position for 35 years, until 1989, thus becoming the longest-serving leader of any Eastern Bloc nation, and one of the longest ruling non-royal leaders in history. His rule marked a period of unprecedented political and economic stability for Bulgaria, marked both by complete submission of Bulgaria to Soviet rule and a desire for expanding ties with the West. His rule remained unchallenged until the deterioration of East-West relations in the 1980s, when a stagnating economic situation, a worsening international image and growing careerism and corruption in the BCP weakened his positions. He resigned on November 10, 1989, under pressure by senior BCP members due to his refusal to recognize problems and deal with public protests. Only two months later, in January 1990, the People's Republic of Bulgaria and its Communist system ceased to exist.
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Toshiki Kaifu
Toshiki Kaifu (海部 俊樹, Kaifu Toshiki?, born 2 January 1931) is a Japanese politician who was the 76th and 77th Prime Minister of Japan from 1989 to 1991.
He was born in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, and was educated at Chuo University and Waseda University. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Kaifu ran successfully for the Diet in 1960 and served for sixteen terms totaling 49 years. He was education minister before rising to lead the party after the resignations of Takeshita Noboru and Sōsuke Uno, elected on the platform of "clean leadership." Kaifu became the 76th Prime Minister of Japan in August 1989, but his faction was too small to push through the reforms Kaifu sought, and the continuing repercussions of the Sagawa Express scandal caused problems. He resigned in February 1991 and was replaced by Kiichi Miyazawa.
In 1994, he left the LDP to become head of the newly founded Shinshinto (New Frontier Party). He left Shinshinto in 1998, then returned to LDP in 2003. He was defeated in the election of 2009 by DPJ candidate Mitsunori Okamoto, which witnessed the end of almost uninterrupted LDP dominance since 1955. At the time of his defeat, he was the longest-serving member of the lower house of the Diet, and he was also the first former prime minister to be defeated at a re-election since 1963.
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U Nu
U Nu (Burmese: ဦးနု; pronounced: [ʔú nṵ]; also Thakin Nu; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995) was a leading Burmese nationalist and political figure of the 20th century. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the provisions of the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma, from 4 January 1948 to 12 June 1956, again from 28 February 1957 to 28 October 1958, and finally from 4 April 1960 to 2 March 1962.
He was born to U San Tun and Daw Saw Khin of Wakema, Myaungmya District, British Burma. He attended Myoma High School in Yangon. In 1929 he got a B.A. from Rangoon University. In 1935 he married Mya Yi while entering the exam of LLB.
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Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (Finnish pronunciation: [urhɔ kɑlɛʋɑ kekːɔnɛn] ( listen); 3 September 1900 - 31 August 1986), was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland (1950–1953, 1954–1956) and later as the eighth and longest-serving President of Finland (1956–1982). Kekkonen continued the “active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen line”. Under it, Finland retained its independence while being able to trade with both NATO members and those of the Warsaw Pact.
The son of Juho Kekkonen and Emilia Pylvänäinen, Kekkonen was born in Pielavesi, in the Savo region of Finland and spent his childhood in Kainuu. His family were farmers (though not poor tenant farmers, as some of his supporters later claimed). His father was originally a farm-hand and forestry worker who rose to become a forestry manager and stock agent at Halla Ltd. Claims made that Kekkonen's family had lived in a rudimentary farmhouse with no chimney were later proved to be false—a photograph of Kekkonen's childhood home had been retouched to remove the chimney. His school years did not go smoothly. During the Finnish Civil War, Kekkonen fought for the White Guard (Kajaani chapter), fighting in Kuopio, Varkaus, Mouhu and Viipuri, and taking part in mop-up operations, including leading a firing squad in Hamina. He later admitted to having killed a man in battle, but wrote in his memoirs that he was randomly selected by his company commander to follow a squad escorting ten prisoners, where the squad turned out to be a firing squad, and then to give the actual order to aim and fire.
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Vasco Gonçalves
General Vasco dos Santos Gonçalves (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvaʃku ɡõˈsaɫvɨʃ]; Lisbon 3 May 1922 – 11 June 2005) was a Portuguese army officer in the Engineering Corps who took part in the Carnation Revolution and later served as the 104th Prime Minister from 18 July 1974 to 19 September 1975.
He was best known for his controversial left-wing positions, including nationalization of banks and insurance companies after the events of 11 March 1975. The matter of fact is that those nationalizations were provoked by the bank conglomerates' huge debt to the Portuguese State and their directors' escape to Brazil.
In parallel, other measures implemented by his Government, such as imposing a minimum wage and the attribution of the "Christmas subsidy" (equal to one month's pay), were hardly radical in democratic Europe, even by today's standards.
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Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Russian: Вячесла́в Миха́йлович Мо́лотов; 9 March [O.S. 25 February] 1890 – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev. He served as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Premier) from 1930 to 1941, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956. Molotov served for several years as First Deputy Premier in Joseph Stalin's cabinet. He retired in 1961 after several years of obscurity.
Molotov was the principal Soviet signatory of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 (also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), after Britain and France repeatedly failed to join the Soviets in an anti-Nazi alliance, was involved in post-war negotiations where he became noted for his diplomatic skills, and knew of the Katyn massacre committed by the Soviet authorities. Following the aftermath of World War II (Great Patriotic War) Molotov kept his place, until 1949, as a leading Soviet diplomat and politician. In March 1949, after losing Stalin's favour, he lost the foreign affairs ministry to Andrei Vyshinsky. Molotov's relationship with Stalin deteriorated further, with Stalin complaining about Molotov's mistakes in a speech to the 19th Party Congress. However, after Stalin's death in 1953 Molotov was staunchly opposed to Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation policy. He defended his policies and the legacy of Stalin until his death in 1986, and harshly criticized Stalin's successors, especially Nikita Khrushchev.
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Walter Hallstein
Walter Hallstein (17 November 1901 – 29 March 1982) was a German politician and professor.
He was one of the key figures of European integration after World War II, becoming the first President of the Commission of the European Economic Community, serving from 1958 to 1967. He famously defined his position as "a kind of Prime Minister of Europe". His name is associated with the Hallstein Doctrine, a key doctrine in West German foreign policy during the Cold War.
Hallstein was born in Mainz, Germany, the son of a government building officer. He studied law in Bonn, Munich and Berlin and graduated in 1925 with a doctoral dissertation on the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles with regard to insurance policies. From 1926 he worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign Private and International Private Law in Berlin. In 1930, at the age of 28, he was appointed professor for private law and company law at the University of Rostock (Rostock), where he remained until 1941. During Nazism Hallstein was a member of National Socialist People's Welfare and national socialist professional associations for lawyers and judges. In 1941 he was appointed professor of civil law at the University of Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main). He was also, at the same time, director of the university's Institute for Comparative Law and Commercial Law.
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Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht (30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 (and then Honorary "Chairman" until his death), he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (spending the years of Nazi rule in exile in the Soviet Union) in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 he was the East German head of state until his own death in 1973.
Ulbricht was born in Leipzig, Saxony, where his father worked as a tailor. He spent eight years in primary school (Volksschule). After leaving school, he trained to be a joiner. Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Walter Ulbricht joined the party in 1912.
Ulbricht served in World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia on the Eastern Front, and in the Balkans. He deserted in 1917, as he had opposed the war from the beginning. Imprisoned in Charleroi, in 1918 he was released during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. In 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after it split off from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) over support of Germany's participation in World War I. During the German Revolution he became a member of the soldier's soviet of his army corps and later a member of the KPD in 1920, joining its Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925. The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony (Sächsischer Landtag) in 1926. He became a Member of the Reichstag for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and served as KPD chairman in Berlin from 1929.
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Wang Dongxing
Wang Dongxing (pinyin: Wāng Dōngxìng; IPA: [wɑ́ŋ tʊ́ŋɕîŋ]; born 1916 in Yiyang County, Jiangxi) was Mao Zedong's principal bodyguard during the Cultural Revolution.
As commander of the 8341 Special Regiment, Mao's personal elite bodyguard force, but was dismissed by Mao for excessive protection, and sent to a labor reform camp. He later was reinstated. Wang Dongxing was instrumental in the coup d'état against the Gang of Four immediately after Mao's death.
He was prominent under Hua Guofeng, being one of the five members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, a committee whose membership varies between 5 and 9 and includes the top leadership of the Communist Party of China. He lost power as Deng Xiaoping rose to supreme power and was deprived of all his posts in the early 1980s.
As a gesture both to his role in the coup d’etat and to signal that political foes would no longer be persecuted, Wang was elected to the very last alternate position of the CPC Central Committee at the 1982 12th National Party Congress.
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Wang Hongwen
Wang Hongwen (pinyin: Wáng Hóngwén; Wade-Giles: Wang Hung-wen; IPA: [wɑ̌ŋ xʊ̌ŋwə̌n]; born 1935, died August 3, 1992) was the youngest member of the Gang of Four. His ascent to central party leadership has been compared by some Chinese to "helicopter flight" due to his extraordinary rise from the working class. At the pinnacle of his power he ranked third in the Communist Party's hierarchy. He was charged with counterrevolutionary activity in October 1976, and sent to prison.
Wang was born in a village outside of Changchun. He took part in the Korean War in the early 1950s. After the war, he was sent to Shanghai to work in a factory as the head of security guards, where he met Zhang Chunqiao and became involved in a Red Guards group. He organized the Shanghai Commune in January 1967, and in 1969, he was elevated to the CCP Politburo and in 1973, to Vice Chairman and third rank, behind Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai in the Central Committee Politburo Standing Committee.
Wang was rumored to be slated to become Premier after then-Premier Zhou Enlai's death. However, Hua Guofeng was chosen to succeed Premier Zhou in January 1976. Wang was an important player during and after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, and was the announcer for his funeral service on national radio on September 18, 1976. He was arrested for his participation in the Gang of Four in October 1976, tried, and received life imprisonment. He died of liver cancer in a Beijing hospital on August 3, 1992.
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Wang Ming
Wang Ming (Chinese: 王明; pinyin: Wáng Míng; May 23, 1904 - March 27, 1974) was a senior leader of the early Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the mastermind of the famous 28 Bolsheviks group.[citation needed] Wang was also a major political rival of Mao Zedong during the 1930s, opposing Mao's nationalist deviation from the Comintern and orthodox Marxism and Leninism lines. Wang epitomized the intellectualism and foreign dogmatism Mao criticized in his essays "On Practice" and "On Contradiction". The competition between Wang and Mao was a reflection of the power struggle between the Soviet Union, through the vehicle of the Comintern, and the CCP to control both the direction and future of the Chinese revolution.
On May 23, 1904, Wang was born in Jinzhai, Anhui, as Chen Shaoyu (陈绍禹) to a poor peasant family. In 1920, he entered the Zhicheng Elementary School in Gushi County. Wang then entered the Third Agricultural School of the Anhui Province, which was founded by the revolutionary Zhu Yunshan. Zhu had a strong influence on the school's students, introducing many progressive journals and books such as New Youth and Communism ABC. In the school, Wang would encounter another strong influential figure in his life, A Ying (Qian Xinchun), his teacher. A Ying would teach Wang about Vladimir Lenin and Chen Duxiu.
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Wang Shiwei
Wang Shiwei (Chinese: 王實味, Wade-Giles: Wang Shih-wei) (March 12, 1906-July 1, 1947) was a Chinese journalist and literary writer. He became famous for his contribution to the Chinese history of modern revolution and to Chinese modern literature. Wang joined the Communist Party of China in 1926, but later wrote critically of some aspects of the revolution. Under order from Mao Zedong, he was expelled from the party, and executed in 1947.
Wang Shiwei, originally named Wang Sidao (Chinese: 王思禱), was born in Guangzhou (光州，now Huangchuan County潢川) in Henan Province, China on March 12, 1906. His courtesy name ("zi" 字) was "Shuhan" (叔翰). His father was a scholar who worked as a teacher in a local school. Wang was the third eldest child in a family of eight brothers and sisters. His father's income as a teacher was not sufficient to sustain the large family.
Wang received his initial education in Chinese classics from his father, which began the development of his knowledge of Chinese literature. In 1914, he entered Huangchuan Second Higher Primary school (潢川第二高等小學) for primary three education. Later, he went to Henan Seventh Secondary School located in Huangchuan (now Huangchuan 2nd Middle School 潢川第二中學). He eventually left his hometown and entered the Fundamental School of Europe. He was forced to leave this school a year later, as his family could no longer afford the costly fees. Determined to further his studies, he worked in a post office to save money; at the age of 17, he joined the American Exchange Studies program in Henan Province.
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Wen Tianxiang
Wen Tianxiang (Chinese: 文天祥; pinyin: Wén Tiānxiáng; Cantonese Yale: Man Tin Cheung; June 6, 1236 – January 9, 1283 AD), Duke of Xinguo, was a scholar-general in the last years of the Southern Song Dynasty. For his resistance to Kublai Khan's invasion of the Song, and for his refusal to yield to the Yuan Dynasty despite being captured and tortured, he is a popular symbol of patriotism and righteousness in China. He is considered one of three heroes of the Song's last years, alongside Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie.[citation needed]
His symbolic role can be seen from the following fact of 1908: in Wen Tianxiang's historical shrine in Haifeng Chen Jiongming persuaded over thirty young men of the village to swear secret support for a national revolution.
Wen was born on 6 June 1236 in Luling (Ji'an), Jiangxi Province during the Song Dynasty. At the age of 18 he excelled in his local examinations, and two years later participated in examinations in the capital, during which he was personally awarded first rank by the emperor. He would subsequently take up several posts in the government of the Southern Song, including being Attendant (郎官) of the Justice Ministry and Prefect of Ganzhou.
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Wikipedia Persondata
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Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.
Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.
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Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.
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Wojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski (pronounced [ˈvɔi̯t͡ɕɛx jaruˈzɛlskʲi] ( listen); born 6 July 1923) is a retired Polish military officer and Communist politician. He was the last Communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's Army (LWP). He resigned from power after the Polish Round Table Agreement in 1989 led to democratic elections in Poland.
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski was born on 6 July 1923 in Kurów, into a family of gentry. He was raised on the family estate near Wysokie (in the vicinity of Białystok). He was educated in a Catholic school during the 1930s.
On 1 September 1939, the September Campaign started when Poland was invaded by Germany, with the latter country aided by another invasion begun sixteen days later by the Soviet Union. The invasions resulted in the defeat of Poland by the following month, and its partition between Soviet and German control. Jaruzelski and his family fled to Lithuania and stayed with some friends there. However, a few months later, after Lithuania and the other Baltic states were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, Jaruzelski and his family were captured by the army of the Soviet Union, and deported to Siberia. In 1940 at the age of sixteen, Jaruzelski was sent to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, where he performed forced labour in the Karaganda coal mines. During his labour work, having experienced snow blindness, developed permanent damage to his eyes and back. The damage to his eyes forced him to wear dark sunglasses most of the time, which became his trademark.
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Władysław Gomułka
Władysław Gomułka (Polish pronunciation: [vwaˈdɨswaf ɡɔˈmuwka]; 6 February 1905, Krosno – 1 September 1982, Konstancin) was a Polish Communist leader. He was the de facto leader of Poland from 1945 to 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970.
Gomułka was a member of the Communist Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) starting in 1926.
In 1934 Gomułka went to Moscow, where he lived for a year. Upon his return to Poland he was arrested and spent most of his time in prison until the beginning of World War II. During the war, Gomułka became an influential Polish Communist and in 1943 convinced Stalin to allow the reformation of the local Communist party under the name Polish Workers' Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza). He was a Deputy Prime Minister in the Provisional Government of Republic of Poland - Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, from January to June 1945, and in the Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej), from 1945 to 1947. Using his position in the government, he crushed all meaningful resistance to the Communists. He also helped the Communists in winning the 3 x Tak (3 Times Yes) referendum of 1946. A year later, he played a key role in the 1947 parliamentary elections, which saw the Communists and their allies win an overwhelming majority. It later emerged that the Communists had only won both of these votes through massive fraud.
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Xiang Zhongfa
Xiang Zhongfa (simplified Chinese: 向忠发; traditional Chinese: 向忠發; pinyin: Xiàng Zhōngfǎ) (1880 - June 24, 1931) was one of the early senior leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Xiang was born in 1880 to a poor family living in Shanghai. He dropped out of elementary school to move with his parents to their ancestral home in Hubei. When he was 14 years old, he became an apprentice in a weapons factory in Hanyang, a county of Wuhan.
When the factory closed, Xiang found work as a servant in Jiangxi. Three years later, he was recommended by his employer to work for a liner company in Wuhan. He received a promotion to Second Mate four months later and became Chief Mate after two years.
After several years, Xiang transferred to a ship of the major liner company Han Zhiping. There, he was elected as a labor union leader because of his literacy and activity in worker movements. In 1921, Xiang became the Vice Chairman of Han Zhiping's labor union and joined the Communist Party of China.
During the Northern Expedition, the army of Kuomintang (KMT) took over some parts of Hubei and marched towards Wuhan. Xiang and Xu Baihao mobilized workers for strikes against local warlords and set up the labor union of the Hubei province, greatly assisting the KMT army. After the CCP headquarters moved to Wuhan, Xiang was elected a member of the Central Committee of CCP for his contributions. Xiang was then among the most prominent worker activists, along with Su Zhaozheng, Wang Hebo and Deng Pei.
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Xie Fuzhi
Xie Fuzhi (Chinese: 谢富治; pinyin: Xiè Fùzhì; Wade–Giles: Hsieh Fu-chih) was a Communist Party of China military commander, political commissar, and national security specialist. He was born in 1909 in Hong'an County, Hubei and died in Beijing in 1972. He was married to Liu Xiangping. Xie was known for his efficiency and his loyalty to Mao Zedong, and during the Cultural Revolution he played a key role in hunting down the Chairman's enemies in his capacity as Minister of Public Security from 1959-1972.
He joined the Communist Party of China in 1931, at the age of 22.
Prior to 1949, Xie served as a political commissar in the 4th Column of the 2nd Field Army, under a commissars’ chain of command that led to Field Army Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping. His unit was involved in the victorious Huai Hai Campaign against the right-wing Kuomintang, after which it was merged into the newly formed 14th Army of the 2nd Field Army as the 41st Division. Xie emerged from the post-liberation reorganization as Political Commissar of the 4th Army, 2nd Field Army. He served with his former co-commander General Chen Geng, and concurrently as Deputy Political Commissar of the 3rd Army, 2nd Field Army under General Chen Xilian, later to become another Cultural Revolution military figure in support of Chairman Mao.
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Yang Jisheng
Yang Jisheng (simplified Chinese: 杨继绳; traditional Chinese: 楊繼繩; pinyin: Yáng Jìshéng; born November 1940) is a Chinese journalist and author of Tombstone (Mùbēi), a comprehensive account of the Great Chinese Famine during the Great Leap Forward. Yang joined the Communist Party in 1964 and graduated from Tsinghua University in 1966. He promptly joined Xinhua News Agency, where he worked until his retirement in 2001. As of 2008, he was the deputy editor of the journal Yanhuang Chunqiu (炎黄春秋) (Chronicles of History) in Beijing. Yang Jisheng is also listed as a Fellow of China Media Project, a department under Hong Kong University.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Yang began interviewing people and collecting records of The Great Famine of 1959–1961, in which his own foster father had died, eventually accumulating ten million words of records. He published a two-volume 1,208 page account of the period, in which he meticulously cited his sources to prevent the Chinese government from dismissing it. It was widely acclaimed as being the definitive account of the Great Famine. He begins the book,
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Yang Kaihui
Yáng Kāihuì (simplified Chinese: 杨开慧; traditional Chinese: 楊開慧; courtesy name: Yúnjǐn (simplified Chinese: 云锦; traditional Chinese: 雲錦); November 6, 1901 – November 14, 1930), who was the second wife of Mao Zedong from 1920 to 1930, was born in a small village named Bancang, in Changsha, Hunan Province, on November 6, 1901. She had three children with Mao Zedong, named Mao Anying, Mao Anqing, and Mao Anlong. Her father was Yang Changji, the header of the Hunan First Normal School and one of Mao’s favorite teachers.
Yang Kaihui was intelligent and had a progressive upbringing. When she was seven years old, Yang was allowed to attend the forty-primary school of Changsha, which made an exception at that time. When her father returned from the Europe in 1913, Yang Kaihui’s whole family settled in Changsha. In the following year, Yang met her lifelong husband Mao Zedong. At that time, the young Yang Kaihui always heard her parents’ praises to Mao Zedong, but just regarded him as her elder brother.
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Yang Shangkun
Yang Shangkun (5 July 1907 – 14 September 1998) was President of the People's Republic of China from 1988 to 1993, and was a powerful Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission. He was married to Li Bozhao in 1929, one of the few women to participate in the Long March, as did Yang.On the position of the president he succeeded a very influential leader Li Xiannian.
Yang attended university in Shanghai before studying Marxist theory in Moscow, making him one of the most well-educated leaders of the early Chinese Communist Party. Yang returned to China as one of the 28 Bolsheviks and originally supported the early communist leader Zhang Guotao, but switched allegiance to Mao's faction during the Long March. He served as a political commissar during the Chinese Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War.
After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Yang held a number of political positions, eventually becoming a member of the powerful CCP Central Committee. He was purged when the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, and was not recalled until 1978, after Deng Xiaoping rose to power where he became one of the Eight Elders of Communist Party of China. Yang promoted economic reform but opposed political liberalization, a position which Deng eventually came to identify with. Yang reached the height of his political career after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, but his organized opposition to Jiang Zemin's leadership led Deng to force Yang to retire.
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Yao Wenyuan
Yao Wenyuan (pinyin: Yáo Wényuán; IPA: [jɑ̌ʊ wə̌nɥǎn]; 1931 Zhuji, Shaoxing, Zhejiang – December 23, 2005) was a Chinese literary critic, a politician, and a member of the "Gang of Four" during China's Cultural Revolution.
Yao Wenyuan was born to an intellectual family of China. His father, Yao Pengzi (姚蓬子) was a writer, translator and art critic.
He began his career in Shanghai as a literary critic, where he became known for his sharp attacks against colleagues, such as in June 1957 against the newspaper Wenhuibao. Since that time, he began to closely collaborate with leftist Shanghai politicians, including the head of the city's Propaganda Department, Zhang Chunqiao. His article "On the New Historical Beijing Opera 'Hai Rui Dismissed from Office'" (Chinese: 海瑞罢官; pinyin: Hăi Ruì bà guān), published in the Shanghai daily Wenhuibao on November 10, 1965, launched the Cultural Revolution.
The article was about a popular opera by Wu Han, who was deputy mayor of Beijing. Zhang Chunqiao and Jiang Qing feared the play could be counter-revolutionary because parallels could be drawn between the characters in the play and officials in the communist government.
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Yasuhiro Nakasone
Yasuhiro Nakasone (中曽根 康弘, Nakasone Yasuhiro?, born 27 May 1918) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from November 27, 1982 to November 6, 1987. A contemporary of Brian Mulroney, Ronald Reagan, Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, and Mikhail Gorbachev, he is best known for pushing through the privatization of state-owned companies, and for helping to revitalize Japanese nationalism during and after his term as prime minister. Nakasone is currently the oldest living Japanese prime minister.
Nakasone was born in Takasaki, in Gunma, a poor mountainous prefecture where his father was a lumber dealer. He attended Tokyo Imperial University. During World War II, he was a commissioned officer and paymaster in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
In 1947, he gave up a promising career in an elite government ministry to run for Parliament with the belief that in its postwar remorse, Japan was in danger of discarding its traditional values (according to a 2010 profile). He entered the Diet of Japan as a member of the House of Representatives for the Democratic Party. "As a freshman lawmaker in 1951, he delivered a 28-page letter to General MacArthur criticizing the occupation, a brazen move. The general angrily threw the letter in the wastebasket, Mr. Nakasone was later told. This stand established [Nakasone's] credentials as a right-wing politician." He gained brief notoriety in 1952 for blaming Emperor Hirohito for Japan's defeat in the war. In 1955, at Nakasone's urging, the government granted the equivalent of 14 million dollars to the Agency for Industrial Science and Technology to begin nuclear power research.[1] Nakasone rose through the LDP's ranks, becoming Minister of Science in 1959 under the government of Nobusuke Kishi, then Minister of Transport in 1967, head of the Agency of Defense in 1970, Minister of International Trade and Industry in 1972 and Minister of Administration in 1981.
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Ye Jianying
Ye Jianying (simplified Chinese: 叶剑英; traditional Chinese: 葉劍英; Mandarin Pinyin: Yè Jiànyīng; Wade–Giles: Yeh Chien-ying; Jyutping: Yip Gim-ying; 28 April 1897 – 22 October 1986) was a Chinese communist general and the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1978 to 1983.
Born Ye Yiwei (simplified Chinese: 叶宜伟; traditional Chinese: 葉宜偉; pinyin: Yè Yíwěi) into a wealthy Hakka merchant family in Mei County, Guangdong, his courtesy name was Cāngbái (simplified Chinese: 沧白; traditional Chinese: 滄白). After graduation from the Yunnan Military Academy in 1919, he joined Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (KMT). He taught at the Whampoa Military Academy and joined the communist party in 1927.
In 1927, he participated in the failed Nanchang Uprising and was forced to flee to Hong Kong with another two communist leaders of the uprising, Zhou Enlai and Ye Ting (not related to Ye Jianying), with two handguns among them. Although strongly opposed to the Guangzhou Uprising with other military commanders such as Ye Ting in the same year, they nonetheless faithfully carried out their assigned duties in the uprising, which of course ended in disaster again, and once again, Ye was forced to flee to Hong Kong, like other communist leaders such as Ye Ting and Nie Rongzhen. However, Ye was far more fortunate than Ye Ting who was made a scapegoat of the failure of the Comintern policy and forced into exile, Ye was not blamed and subsequently studied military science in Moscow.
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Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (Russian: Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов, tr. Yuriy Vladimirovich Andropov; IPA: [ˈjʉrʲɪj vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ɐnˈdropəf]; 15 June [O.S. 2 June] 1914 – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.
Andropov was the son of a railway official Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, who was a member of a Don Cossack noble family. His mother was Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein, a daughter of a wealthy Moscow businessman, Karl Franzovich Fleckenstein, a German Russian from Vyborg. Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College.
Andropov joined the Komsomol in 1930. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1939 and was First Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944.
During World War II, Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work. In 1947, he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.
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Zhang Chunqiao
Zhang Chunqiao (pinyin: Zhāng Chūnqiáo; Wade-Giles: Chang Ch'un-ch'iao; IPA: [tʂɑ́ŋ tʂʰúntɕʰjɑ̌ʊ]; 1917 Juye County, Heze, Shandong –April 21, 2005) was a prominent Chinese political theorist, writer, and politician. He came to the national spotlight during the late stages of the Cultural Revolution, and was a member of the Maoist radical group dubbed the "Gang of Four".
He worked as a writer in Shanghai in the 1930s. After the Yan'an conference in 1938, he joined the Communist Party of China. With the creation of the People's Republic of China, he became a prominent journalist in Shanghai in charge of the Liberation Daily (Jiefang Ribao). He met Jiang Qing in Shanghai and helped to launch the Cultural Revolution.
Zhang first came to prominence as the result of his October 1958 Jiefang ("Liberation") magazine entitled “Destroy the Ideas of Bourgeois Legal Ownership.” Mao Zedong ordered the reproduction of the article in Renmin Ribao ("People’s Daily"), and personally wrote an accompanying “Editor’s Note” giving mild approval. He was seen as one of Mao Zedong's full supporters as he was starting a struggle with rival leader Liu Shaoqi.
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Zhang Wentian
Zhang Wentian (simplified Chinese: 张闻天; traditional Chinese: 張聞天; pinyin: Zhāng Wéntiān; 30 June 1900 – 1 July 1976). He is also known as Luo Fu (洛甫). His names in Wade-Giles are Chang Wen-t'ien and Lo Fu.
Born in Jiangsu, he attended engineering school in Nanjing and also spent a year at the University of California. He later joined the Communist Party and was sent to study at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow from 1926 to 1930. He was one of the group known as the 28 Bolsheviks, but switched to supporting Mao Zedong during the Long March. He was General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1935 to 1945, when the post was abolished. He remained a member of the Politbureau, but ranked 12th of 13 in the 7th Politburo and reduced to Alternate Member in the 8th Politburo
He was First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China from December, 1954 to November, 1960. He was a participant of the Long March, and later served as an ambassador to the Soviet Union from April 1951 to January 1955. At the Lushan Conference in 1959 he supported Peng Dehuai and lost power along with Peng. During the Cultural Revolution he was attacked as an ally of Peng and Liu Shaoqi; he was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping after Mao's death.
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Zhang Xueliang
Zhang Xueliang or Chang Hsüeh-liang (3 June 1901,Haicheng County, Fengtian Province – 14 October 2001, Honolulu, Hawaii), occasionally called Peter Hsueh Liang Chang in English, nicknamed the Young Marshal (少帥), was the effective ruler of Manchuria and much of North China after the assassination of his father, Zhang Zuolin, by the Japanese on 4 June 1928. As an instigator of the Xi'an incident he spent over 50 years under house arrest, but is regarded by the People's Republic of China as a patriotic hero.
Zhang was educated by private tutors and, unlike his father, felt at ease in the company of westerners. Zhang Xueliang graduated from Fengtian Military Academy, was made a Colonel in the Fengtian Army, and was appointed commander of his father's bodyguards in 1919. In 1921, he was sent to Japan to observe military maneuvers, where he developed a special interest in aircraft. Later, he developed an air corps for the Fengtian Army, which was widely used in the battles which took place within the Great Wall during the 1920s. In 1922, he was advanced to Major General and commanded an army-sized force, two years later he was also made commander of the air units. Upon the death of his father in 1928, he succeeded him as the strongest warlord in Manchuria. In December of the same year he proclaimed his allegiance to the Kuomintang (KMT).
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Zhang Zhenshi
Zhang Zhenshi 张振仕 (1914–1992) was a famous effigy painter and fine art educator in China. He is most famous for his portraits of the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, one of which has become the most reproduced image of Mao of all time. Some artists have called it "China's Mona Lisa."
Born in Liaoyang of Liaoning Province, Zhang graduated from the Western Painting Department of the Jinghua Art Academy in 1936. He would later serve as a teacher at National Beiping Art Training School, editor-in-chief of the journal Art and Life (艺术与生活, Yishu yu shenghuo), deputy-editor of Chahar Illustrated (察哈尔画报, Chaha'er huabao), and as a professor at Liaoning Provincial Art Training School, National Changbai Normal College, and the Central Academy for Industrial Art.
In 1977, he produced the portrait of Zhou Enlai that can be seen in the National Museum of China and was awarded the title of "advanced worker" by the Ministry of Light Industry and the Central Academy for Industrial Art.
Zhang is best known for his portrait of a solemn Mao Zedong dressed in a simple gray tunic. Commissioned as one of 30 paintings of the chairman, in honor of the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the portrait was Mao's favorite and reproduced on posters throughout China.
wn.com/Zhang_Zhenshi -
Zhao Ziyang
Zhao Ziyang (pronounced [tʂɑ̂ʊ tsɨ̀jɑ̌ŋ]; 17 October 1919 – 17 January 2005) was a high-ranking politician in the People's Republic of China (PRC). He was the third Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989.
As a senior government official, Zhao was critical of Maoist policies and instrumental in implementing free-market reforms, first in Sichuan, subsequently nationwide. He emerged on the national scene due to support from Deng Xiaoping after the Cultural Revolution. He also sought measures to streamline the bureaucracy and fight corruption, which was severely affecting the Party's legitimacy in the 1980s. Zhao Ziyang was also an advocate of the privatization of state-owned enterprises, the separation of the Party and the state, and general market economic reforms. Many of these views were shared by then-General Secretary Hu Yaobang.
His economic reform policies and sympathies to student demonstrators during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 placed him at odds with some members of the party leadership, including Premier Li Peng. Zhao also began to lose favour with paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. In the aftermath of the events, Zhao was purged politically and effectively placed under house arrest for the next 15 years. He died in Beijing in 2005, but because of his political fall from grace he was not given the funeral rites generally accorded to senior Chinese officials.
wn.com/Zhao_Ziyang -
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai; IPA: [tʂóʊ ə́nlǎɪ]; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Mao Zedong and was instrumental in consolidating the control of the Communist Party's rise to power, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy.
A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the stalemated Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding the bitter disputes with the U.S., Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India and Vietnam. Zhou is best known as the long-time top aide to Mao Zedong, specializing in foreign policy. Their contrasting personalities made them an effective team, according to Henry Kissinger, the American diplomat who had extensive dealings with both men:
wn.com/Zhou_Enlai -
Zhu De
Zhu De (pronounced [tʂú tɤ̌]; 1 December 1886 – 6 July 1976) was a Chinese general, politician, revolutionary, and one of the pioneers of the Chinese Communist Party. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1955 Zhu became one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army, of which he is regarded as the founder.
Zhu was born to a poor tenant farmer's family in Yilong County, a hilly and isolated part of northern Sichuan province. His father, a Hakka, was born in Guangdong province. His ancestors relocated to Sichuan during the migration from Hunan province and Guangdong province. Despite their poverty, Zhu was sent to a classic private school in 1892. Before the repeal of imperial examinations in 1906, he attained the rank of Xiucai, which allowed him to qualify as a civil servant. Enrolling in Sichuan high school around 1907, upon graduating in 1908 he returned to Yilong high primary school as a gym instructor. An advocate of modern science and political teaching, rather than the strict classical education afforded by schools, he was dismissed from his post and entered the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming. There he joined the Beiyang Army and the Tongmenghui secret political society (the forerunner of Guomindang)
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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Urdu: ذوالفقار علی بھٹو, Sindhi: ذوالفقار علي ڀُٽو, IPA: [zʊlfɪqɑːɾ ɑli bʱʊʈːoː]) (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that, 4th President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and served as its chairman until his execution in 1979. His elder daughter, Benazir Bhutto, later also served as Prime Minister, while his son Murtaza Bhutto served as member of Parliament of Pakistan.
Educated at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley in the United States and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Bhutto was noted for his progressive economic initiatives, industrialisation, education, and foreign policy, and his intellectualism. In addition to national security issues, Bhutto promoted his policies on nationalisation, health care, and social reforms. Under his premiership, Pakistan's Parliament gave approval and passed unanimously the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan, a supreme law that provides a parliamentary system to Pakistan, strengthened Sino-Pakistani and Saudi-Pakistani relations, recognised East-Pakistan as Bangladesh, and hosted the second Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1974 where he delegated and invited leaders from the Muslim world to Lahore, Punjab Province of Pakistan. In July 1972, Bhutto successfully proceeded the Shimla treaty, signed with Indira Gandhi of India, brought 93,000 Prisoners of War back to Pakistan, and secured 5,000 sq mi (13,000 km2) held by India. In 20 January 1972, weeks after the Indo-Pakistani 1971 winter war, Bhutto orchestrated, authorised, and administrated the scientific research on nuclear weapons; for this, he is colloquially known in the world as "Father of the Pakistan's nuclear deterrent programme".
wn.com/Zulfikar_Ali_Bhutto -
Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈaɫvɐɾu kuˈɲaɫ]; Sé Nova, Coimbra, 10 November 1913 — Lisbon, 13 June 2005), was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) from 1961 to 1992. He was one of the most pro-Soviet of all western Europe communist leaders, often supporting USSR world policies, including the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Cunhal was born in Coimbra, the third child of Avelino Henriques da Costa Cunhal (Seia, Seia, October 28, 1887 – Coimbra, Sé Nova, December 19, 1966) and wife (m. Coimbra, Sé Nova, August 22, 1908) Mercedes Simões Ferreira Barreirinhas (Coimbra, Sé Nova, May 5, 1888 – Lisbon, September 12, 1971). His father was a lawyer in Coimbra and Seia, and later on in Lisbon, and came from a family of rural bourgeoisie, related to a rich and more aristocratic family, the Cunhal Patrício. His mother was a devout Catholic who wished her son had also become one. He also studied Law at the University of Lisbon, where he joined the PCP, then an illegal organization, in 1931. The deaths of his younger sister Maria Mansueta Barrerinhas Cunhal (Coimbra – Seia, January 13, 1921) and of his older brother António José Barreirinhas Cunhal (Coimbra, 1910 – Lisbon, 1932) struck the grief of both his parents and brothers, but specially of his mother and Álvaro, of whom they had always been close. He visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1935 to attend the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. He joined the Central Committee of the PCP in 1936 at the age of 24. His first arrest occurred in 1937.
wn.com/Álvaro_Cunhal
Famous quotes by Mao Zedong:
"You say, away with you Communists; we say, away with you imperialists."
"We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."
"What we have in excess is women. So if you want, we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands. Let them go to your place. They will create disasters. That way you can lessen our burden."
"An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy."
"To read too many books is harmful."
"I have witnessed the tremendous energy of the masses. On this foundation it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever."
"Let a hundred flowers bloom."
"All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger."
"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."
"Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years."
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Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 45:54
- Updated: 05 Mar 2013
Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
http://wn.com/Biography_Mao_Zedong_Mao_Tse-Tung
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 43:38
- Updated: 03 Mar 2013
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
http://wn.com/China_Chairman_Mao_Declassified_Mad_dog_Mao_Zedong_Mao_Tse_Tung
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
- published: 04 Feb 2012
- views: 52646
- author: ngphutrongbannuoc
Declassified - Chairman Mao - China - Communist Part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:24
- Updated: 02 Mar 2013
A profound look into the rise of Communist China. Better than fiction. Please support the History Channel @ www.History.com. The History Channel does not endorse RAAI, but we are avid fans promoting and using their material in our reporting according to Fair Use laws.
http://wn.com/Declassified_Chairman_Mao_China_Communist_Part_1
A profound look into the rise of Communist China. Better than fiction. Please support the History Channel @ www.History.com. The History Channel does not endorse RAAI, but we are avid fans promoting and using their material in our reporting according to Fair Use laws.
- published: 09 May 2010
- views: 49254
- author: AscendingIntellect
毛泽东讲话, Mao Zedong Speech
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:03
- Updated: 21 Feb 2013
Chairman Mao Zedong spoke on 9th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CCP). Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China www.marxists.org
http://wn.com/毛泽东讲话,_Mao_Zedong_Speech
Chairman Mao Zedong spoke on 9th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CCP). Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China www.marxists.org
- published: 20 Sep 2011
- views: 19504
- author: MonkeyKing1949
Combat Liberalism- Mao Zedong
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:55
- Updated: 20 Feb 2013
Combat Liberalism by Mao Zedong
http://wn.com/Combat_Liberalism_Mao_Zedong
John Adams - Nixon in China - I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung - Kathleen Kim
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:26
- Updated: 03 Mar 2013
Kathleen Kim as Madame Mao in Met's production of John Adams opera Nixon in China. February 2011.
http://wn.com/John_Adams_Nixon_in_China_I_am_the_wife_of_Mao_Tse-tung_Kathleen_Kim
Kathleen Kim as Madame Mao in Met's production of John Adams opera Nixon in China. February 2011.
- published: 10 Jun 2011
- views: 30781
- author: Pedrogm85
Mao Zedong famous speeches (1893-1978)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:13
- Updated: 05 Mar 2013
3 famous speeches of legendary chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. 1st speech: from 0:00min to 2:13min 2nd speech: from 2:14min to 3:26min 3rd speech: from 3:27min to end.
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong_famous_speeches_1893-1978
3 famous speeches of legendary chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. 1st speech: from 0:00min to 2:13min 2nd speech: from 2:14min to 3:26min 3rd speech: from 3:27min to end.
- published: 24 Jul 2008
- views: 183833
- author: HigginsSnooker
Mao Tse-tung Speech
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:51
- Updated: 04 Mar 2013
Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
http://wn.com/Mao_Tse-tung_Speech
Glenn Beck Video Of Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:24
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Joking? More here: hotairpundit.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/Glenn_Beck_Video_Of_Anita_Dunn_Mao_Tse_Tung_Favorite_Philosopher
Joking? More here: hotairpundit.blogspot.com
- published: 15 Oct 2009
- views: 55616
- author: Speakmymind02
Obama Cabinet Member Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"; Truth is subjective
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:05
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
http://wn.com/Obama_Cabinet_Member_Anita_Dunn_Mao_Tse_Tung_Favorite_Philosopher;_Truth_is_subjective
Nixon in China - "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung" excerpt - The Metropolitan Opera
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:23
- Updated: 03 Mar 2013
Excerpt from the final dress rehearsal of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the Met Opera on January 31, 2011. Buy tickets for performances through February 19, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org See it Live in HD at movie theaters around the world on Saturday February 12, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit us at: www.metopera.org Connect with us! Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter: www.twitter.com
http://wn.com/Nixon_in_China_I_am_the_wife_of_Mao_Tse-tung_excerpt_The_Metropolitan_Opera
Excerpt from the final dress rehearsal of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the Met Opera on January 31, 2011. Buy tickets for performances through February 19, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org See it Live in HD at movie theaters around the world on Saturday February 12, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit us at: www.metopera.org Connect with us! Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter: www.twitter.com
- published: 01 Feb 2011
- views: 25916
- author: MetropolitanOpera
CIA Archives: Chairman Mao Tse-Tung Worship and Propaganda (1969)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 12:52
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
thefilmarchive.org DVD: www.amazon.com The origins of the CCP propaganda system can be traced to the Yan'an and the rectification movements carried out there following which it became a key mechanism in the Party's campaigns. The propaganda system, considered a central part of CCP's "control system," drew much from Soviet, Nazi and other totalitarian states' propaganda methods. It represented a quintessential Leninist "transmission belt" for indoctrination and mass mobilization. David Shambaugh observes that propaganda and indoctrination are considered to been a hallmark of the Maoist China; the CCP employed a variety of "thought control" techniques, including incarceration for "thought reform," construction of role models to be emulated, mass mobilization campaigns, the creation of ideological monitors and propaganda teams for indoctrination purposes, enactment of articles to be memorized, control of the educational system and media, a nationwide system of loudspeakers, among other methods. While ostensibly aspiring to a "Communist utopia," often had a negative focus on constantly searching for enemies among the people. The means of persuasion was often extremely violent, "a literal acting out of class struggle." According to Anne-Marie Brady, an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury's School of Political Science and Communication, CCP propaganda and thought work traditionally had a much broader notion of the public sphere than is usually defined by media ...
http://wn.com/CIA_Archives_Chairman_Mao_Tse-Tung_Worship_and_Propaganda_1969
thefilmarchive.org DVD: www.amazon.com The origins of the CCP propaganda system can be traced to the Yan'an and the rectification movements carried out there following which it became a key mechanism in the Party's campaigns. The propaganda system, considered a central part of CCP's "control system," drew much from Soviet, Nazi and other totalitarian states' propaganda methods. It represented a quintessential Leninist "transmission belt" for indoctrination and mass mobilization. David Shambaugh observes that propaganda and indoctrination are considered to been a hallmark of the Maoist China; the CCP employed a variety of "thought control" techniques, including incarceration for "thought reform," construction of role models to be emulated, mass mobilization campaigns, the creation of ideological monitors and propaganda teams for indoctrination purposes, enactment of articles to be memorized, control of the educational system and media, a nationwide system of loudspeakers, among other methods. While ostensibly aspiring to a "Communist utopia," often had a negative focus on constantly searching for enemies among the people. The means of persuasion was often extremely violent, "a literal acting out of class struggle." According to Anne-Marie Brady, an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury's School of Political Science and Communication, CCP propaganda and thought work traditionally had a much broader notion of the public sphere than is usually defined by media ...
- published: 07 Nov 2011
- views: 4409
- author: thefilmarchived
Grandes biografías Mao Tse Tung documental online
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 43:57
- Updated: 05 Mar 2013
Mao Tse Tung fue uno de los hombres mas importantes de la historia moderna de china, pues impulso grandes cambios en la vida de sus abitantes. La historia politica de Mao esta llena de contradicciones, puesto que aunque promovio reformas importantes para el desarrollo de china, por otro lado impuso su ideologia con un encarnizado derramamiento de sangre.
http://wn.com/Grandes_biografías_Mao_Tse_Tung_documental_online
Mao Tse Tung fue uno de los hombres mas importantes de la historia moderna de china, pues impulso grandes cambios en la vida de sus abitantes. La historia politica de Mao esta llena de contradicciones, puesto que aunque promovio reformas importantes para el desarrollo de china, por otro lado impuso su ideologia con un encarnizado derramamiento de sangre.
- published: 10 Mar 2011
- views: 105583
- author: pedroleon2020
I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung (Nixon in China)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:17
- Updated: 07 Mar 2013
Hye Jung Lee performs "I am the Wife of Mao Zedong" from Nixon in China by John Adams. Lawrence Foster conducting the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Ms. Lee will play Madame Mao in "Nixon in China" for San Francisco Opera in 2012.
http://wn.com/I_Am_the_Wife_of_Mao_Tse-Tung_Nixon_in_China
Hye Jung Lee performs "I am the Wife of Mao Zedong" from Nixon in China by John Adams. Lawrence Foster conducting the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Ms. Lee will play Madame Mao in "Nixon in China" for San Francisco Opera in 2012.
- published: 01 Jul 2011
- views: 21866
- author: HectorJW2007
Alabama 3 live at the Astoria "Mao Tse Tung says"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:05
- Updated: 22 Feb 2013
This is one that I edited. Rob came over to my house to have a look at the cut and he was very happy.
http://wn.com/Alabama_3_live_at_the_Astoria_Mao_Tse_Tung_says
This is one that I edited. Rob came over to my house to have a look at the cut and he was very happy.
- published: 13 Jun 2007
- views: 90619
- author: zynsk
Nixon In China: Act II Scene 2b - I'm the Wife of Mao Zedong
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:25
- Updated: 02 Mar 2013
store.operapassion.com John Adams's first opera Nixon In China (1985-7), produced by Peter Sellars, with libretto by Alice Goodman, about the visit of Richard Nixon to China in 1972, where he met with Mao Zedong and other Chinese officials. Act II Ending - Madam Mao desires to save the peasants at all costs leading her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place. Eventually, a riot develops on stage with Chou and Madam Mao on opposite sides - the opera has become a rerun of the Cultural Revolution. - Quote from Lyrics: (Chiang Ch'ing 江青)"I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung who raised the weak above the strong. When I appear[,] the people hang upon my words".
http://wn.com/Nixon_In_China_Act_II_Scene_2b_I'm_the_Wife_of_Mao_Zedong
store.operapassion.com John Adams's first opera Nixon In China (1985-7), produced by Peter Sellars, with libretto by Alice Goodman, about the visit of Richard Nixon to China in 1972, where he met with Mao Zedong and other Chinese officials. Act II Ending - Madam Mao desires to save the peasants at all costs leading her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place. Eventually, a riot develops on stage with Chou and Madam Mao on opposite sides - the opera has become a rerun of the Cultural Revolution. - Quote from Lyrics: (Chiang Ch'ing 江青)"I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung who raised the weak above the strong. When I appear[,] the people hang upon my words".
- published: 21 Apr 2008
- views: 51661
- author: musicvideoing
Mao Zedong 毛泽东- Establishment the People Republic of China 1949
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:19
- Updated: 28 Feb 2013
1st of October 1949 Mao Zedong establish the People Republic of China at Tiananmen Square Beijing.
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong_毛泽东_Establishment_the_People_Republic_of_China_1949
1st of October 1949 Mao Zedong establish the People Republic of China at Tiananmen Square Beijing.
- published: 27 Oct 2009
- views: 11233
- author: lawlen91
Die Größten Diktatoren Mao Zedong 1/5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:02
- Updated: 11 Feb 2013
documentation-blog.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/Die_Größten_Diktatoren_Mao_Zedong_1_5
Mao Zedong's Theme - Civilization IV
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:09
- Updated: 03 Jan 2013
After several months of procrastination, I am back with four new Civilization IV videos! :D This is the theme of Mao Zedong in Civilization IV. It's a great song titled "The Shining Path", and was requested by both WallStreetWill86 and Ninjutsupope. I have included all three versions of this music from Civilization IV in this video. Enjoy!
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong's_Theme_Civilization_IV
After several months of procrastination, I am back with four new Civilization IV videos! :D This is the theme of Mao Zedong in Civilization IV. It's a great song titled "The Shining Path", and was requested by both WallStreetWill86 and Ninjutsupope. I have included all three versions of this music from Civilization IV in this video. Enjoy!
- published: 19 Apr 2009
- views: 10872
- author: GigaNerd17
Mao Tse Tung Alabama 3 Ireland China
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:54
- Updated: 06 Mar 2013
Uploaded 29/9/07
http://wn.com/Mao_Tse_Tung_Alabama_3_Ireland_China
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:56
- Updated: 05 Mar 2013
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
http://wn.com/The_Internationale_in_Chinese_Mao_Zedong_Tribute!
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
- published: 13 Nov 2010
- views: 9634
- author: lazarodesouzagomes
Mao Zedong & Chin Peng - Beat IT
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:04
- Updated: 02 Mar 2013
Chairman Mao and Chin Peng singing MJ's Beat It. ROFLMAO!
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong_Chin_Peng_Beat_IT
Chairman Mao and Chin Peng singing MJ's Beat It. ROFLMAO!
- published: 13 Aug 2010
- views: 6294
- author: tokapi
2of7 Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:11
- Updated: 19 Dec 2011
Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung was one of the worst mass murderers of his time. According to assumptions made afterwards of people killed directly or indirectly by starvation or diseases only to be surpassed by Stalin. "Bloody Revolution of Mao",...
http://wn.com/2of7_Bloody_Revolution_of_Mao_Zedong_Mao_Tse-Tung
Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung was one of the worst mass murderers of his time. According to assumptions made afterwards of people killed directly or indirectly by starvation or diseases only to be surpassed by Stalin. "Bloody Revolution of Mao",...
- published: 19 Nov 2010
- views: 2317
- author: rst5555
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Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 45:54
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
http://wn.com/Biography_Mao_Zedong_Mao_Tse-Tung
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 43:38
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
http://wn.com/China_Chairman_Mao_Declassified_Mad_dog_Mao_Zedong_Mao_Tse_Tung
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
- published: 04 Feb 2012
- views: 50181
- author: ngphutrongbannuoc
Declassified - Chairman Mao - China - Communist Part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:24
- Updated: 12 Feb 2013
A profound look into the rise of Communist China. Better than fiction. Please support the History Channel @ www.History.com. The History Channel does not endorse RAAI, but we are avid fans promoting and using their material in our reporting according to Fair Use laws.
http://wn.com/Declassified_Chairman_Mao_China_Communist_Part_1
A profound look into the rise of Communist China. Better than fiction. Please support the History Channel @ www.History.com. The History Channel does not endorse RAAI, but we are avid fans promoting and using their material in our reporting according to Fair Use laws.
- published: 09 May 2010
- views: 48394
- author: AscendingIntellect
Grandes biografías Mao Tse Tung documental online
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 43:57
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Mao Tse Tung fue uno de los hombres mas importantes de la historia moderna de china, pues impulso grandes cambios en la vida de sus abitantes. La historia politica de Mao esta llena de contradicciones, puesto que aunque promovio reformas importantes para el desarrollo de china, por otro lado impuso su ideologia con un encarnizado derramamiento de sangre.
http://wn.com/Grandes_biografías_Mao_Tse_Tung_documental_online
Mao Tse Tung fue uno de los hombres mas importantes de la historia moderna de china, pues impulso grandes cambios en la vida de sus abitantes. La historia politica de Mao esta llena de contradicciones, puesto que aunque promovio reformas importantes para el desarrollo de china, por otro lado impuso su ideologia con un encarnizado derramamiento de sangre.
- published: 10 Mar 2011
- views: 100325
- author: pedroleon2020
Mao Zedong famous speeches (1893-1978)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:13
- Updated: 14 Feb 2013
3 famous speeches of legendary chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. 1st speech: from 0:00min to 2:13min 2nd speech: from 2:14min to 3:26min 3rd speech: from 3:27min to end.
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong_famous_speeches_1893-1978
3 famous speeches of legendary chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. 1st speech: from 0:00min to 2:13min 2nd speech: from 2:14min to 3:26min 3rd speech: from 3:27min to end.
- published: 24 Jul 2008
- views: 183012
- author: HigginsSnooker
Die Größten Diktatoren Mao Zedong 1/5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:02
- Updated: 11 Feb 2013
documentation-blog.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/Die_Größten_Diktatoren_Mao_Zedong_1_5
Die Größten Diktatoren Mao Zedong 4/5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:57
- Updated: 06 Dec 2012
documentation-blog.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/Die_Größten_Diktatoren_Mao_Zedong_4_5
John Adams - Nixon in China - I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung - Kathleen Kim
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:26
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Kathleen Kim as Madame Mao in Met's production of John Adams opera Nixon in China. February 2011.
http://wn.com/John_Adams_Nixon_in_China_I_am_the_wife_of_Mao_Tse-tung_Kathleen_Kim
Kathleen Kim as Madame Mao in Met's production of John Adams opera Nixon in China. February 2011.
- published: 10 Jun 2011
- views: 30175
- author: Pedrogm85
I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung (Nixon in China)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:17
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Hye Jung Lee performs "I am the Wife of Mao Zedong" from Nixon in China by John Adams. Lawrence Foster conducting the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Ms. Lee will play Madame Mao in "Nixon in China" for San Francisco Opera in 2012.
http://wn.com/I_Am_the_Wife_of_Mao_Tse-Tung_Nixon_in_China
Hye Jung Lee performs "I am the Wife of Mao Zedong" from Nixon in China by John Adams. Lawrence Foster conducting the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Ms. Lee will play Madame Mao in "Nixon in China" for San Francisco Opera in 2012.
- published: 01 Jul 2011
- views: 21241
- author: HectorJW2007
Nixon In China: Act II Scene 2b - I'm the Wife of Mao Zedong
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:25
- Updated: 12 Feb 2013
store.operapassion.com John Adams's first opera Nixon In China (1985-7), produced by Peter Sellars, with libretto by Alice Goodman, about the visit of Richard Nixon to China in 1972, where he met with Mao Zedong and other Chinese officials. Act II Ending - Madam Mao desires to save the peasants at all costs leading her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place. Eventually, a riot develops on stage with Chou and Madam Mao on opposite sides - the opera has become a rerun of the Cultural Revolution. - Quote from Lyrics: (Chiang Ch'ing 江青)"I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung who raised the weak above the strong. When I appear[,] the people hang upon my words".
http://wn.com/Nixon_In_China_Act_II_Scene_2b_I'm_the_Wife_of_Mao_Zedong
store.operapassion.com John Adams's first opera Nixon In China (1985-7), produced by Peter Sellars, with libretto by Alice Goodman, about the visit of Richard Nixon to China in 1972, where he met with Mao Zedong and other Chinese officials. Act II Ending - Madam Mao desires to save the peasants at all costs leading her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place. Eventually, a riot develops on stage with Chou and Madam Mao on opposite sides - the opera has become a rerun of the Cultural Revolution. - Quote from Lyrics: (Chiang Ch'ing 江青)"I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung who raised the weak above the strong. When I appear[,] the people hang upon my words".
- published: 21 Apr 2008
- views: 51396
- author: musicvideoing
Mao Zedong & Chin Peng - Beat IT
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:04
- Updated: 21 Jan 2013
Chairman Mao and Chin Peng singing MJ's Beat It. ROFLMAO!
http://wn.com/Mao_Zedong_Chin_Peng_Beat_IT
Chairman Mao and Chin Peng singing MJ's Beat It. ROFLMAO!
- published: 13 Aug 2010
- views: 6241
- author: tokapi
Glenn Beck Video Of Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:24
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Joking? More here: hotairpundit.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/Glenn_Beck_Video_Of_Anita_Dunn_Mao_Tse_Tung_Favorite_Philosopher
Joking? More here: hotairpundit.blogspot.com
- published: 15 Oct 2009
- views: 55576
- author: Speakmymind02
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:56
- Updated: 08 Feb 2013
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
http://wn.com/The_Internationale_in_Chinese_Mao_Zedong_Tribute!
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
- published: 13 Nov 2010
- views: 9322
- author: lazarodesouzagomes
2of7 Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:11
- Updated: 19 Dec 2011
Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung was one of the worst mass murderers of his time. According to assumptions made afterwards of people killed directly or indirectly by starvation or diseases only to be surpassed by Stalin. "Bloody Revolution of Mao",...
http://wn.com/2of7_Bloody_Revolution_of_Mao_Zedong_Mao_Tse-Tung
Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung was one of the worst mass murderers of his time. According to assumptions made afterwards of people killed directly or indirectly by starvation or diseases only to be surpassed by Stalin. "Bloody Revolution of Mao",...
- published: 19 Nov 2010
- views: 2261
- author: rst5555
Alabama 3 live at the Astoria "Mao Tse Tung says"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:05
- Updated: 05 Feb 2013
This is one that I edited. Rob came over to my house to have a look at the cut and he was very happy.
http://wn.com/Alabama_3_live_at_the_Astoria_Mao_Tse_Tung_says
This is one that I edited. Rob came over to my house to have a look at the cut and he was very happy.
- published: 13 Jun 2007
- views: 90239
- author: zynsk
Nixon in China - "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung" excerpt - The Metropolitan Opera
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:23
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Excerpt from the final dress rehearsal of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the Met Opera on January 31, 2011. Buy tickets for performances through February 19, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org See it Live in HD at movie theaters around the world on Saturday February 12, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit us at: www.metopera.org Connect with us! Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter: www.twitter.com
http://wn.com/Nixon_in_China_I_am_the_wife_of_Mao_Tse-tung_excerpt_The_Metropolitan_Opera
Excerpt from the final dress rehearsal of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the Met Opera on January 31, 2011. Buy tickets for performances through February 19, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org See it Live in HD at movie theaters around the world on Saturday February 12, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit us at: www.metopera.org Connect with us! Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter: www.twitter.com
- published: 01 Feb 2011
- views: 25771
- author: MetropolitanOpera
Obama Cabinet Member Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"; Truth is subjective
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:05
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
http://wn.com/Obama_Cabinet_Member_Anita_Dunn_Mao_Tse_Tung_Favorite_Philosopher;_Truth_is_subjective
Network - The Mao Tse Tung Hour Negotiations
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:56
- Updated: 08 Feb 2013
The sometimes dramatic negotiations by the underground leader Laureen Hobbs and the network over the new hit UBS show The Mao Tse Tung Hour. From Network (1976)
http://wn.com/Network_The_Mao_Tse_Tung_Hour_Negotiations
The sometimes dramatic negotiations by the underground leader Laureen Hobbs and the network over the new hit UBS show The Mao Tse Tung Hour. From Network (1976)
- published: 14 Feb 2009
- views: 8039
- author: ascetica0
Mao Tse Tung Said-Alabama 3
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:24
- Updated: 16 Feb 2013
Mao Tse Tung Said by Alabama 3
http://wn.com/Mao_Tse_Tung_Said-Alabama_3
Corría el año: La trayectoria histórica de Mao Zedong
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 44:21
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
César Vidal analiza la trayectoria de Mao Zedong, el que fue máximo dirigente del Partido Comunista de China. Invitados: José Luis Martínez, profesor de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, y Julia Moreno, profesora de Historia Contemporánea de la UCM.
http://wn.com/Corría_el_año_La_trayectoria_histórica_de_Mao_Zedong
César Vidal analiza la trayectoria de Mao Zedong, el que fue máximo dirigente del Partido Comunista de China. Invitados: José Luis Martínez, profesor de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, y Julia Moreno, profesora de Historia Contemporánea de la UCM.
- published: 24 Jun 2008
- views: 9587
- author: libertaddigitaltv
Biografia Mao Tse Tung
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 43:26
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
http://wn.com/Biografia_Mao_Tse_Tung
Michael Savage Exposes Anita Dunn and Her Threatening Mao Tse Tung Obsession - (October 16, 2009)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:43
- Updated: 10 Feb 2013
Aired on The Savage Nation, October 16, 2009 -- Anita Dunn is the interim White House Communications Director. She was a top adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. On June 5, 2009, Anita Dunn delivered a speech to a group of high school students in which, making a point about making choices, she stated "... two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point ...". A video clip of the speech was subsequently aired on Oct 15, 2009 on Glenn Beck's television program on the Fox News Channel as evidence of her having communist sympathies. This clip can be viewed here: www.youtube.com Posted originaly by "imitator777" Pls subscribe to his new channel: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Michael_Savage_Exposes_Anita_Dunn_and_Her_Threatening_Mao_Tse_Tung_Obsession_October_16,_2009
Aired on The Savage Nation, October 16, 2009 -- Anita Dunn is the interim White House Communications Director. She was a top adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. On June 5, 2009, Anita Dunn delivered a speech to a group of high school students in which, making a point about making choices, she stated "... two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point ...". A video clip of the speech was subsequently aired on Oct 15, 2009 on Glenn Beck's television program on the Fox News Channel as evidence of her having communist sympathies. This clip can be viewed here: www.youtube.com Posted originaly by "imitator777" Pls subscribe to his new channel: www.youtube.com
- published: 21 Oct 2009
- views: 17474
- author: martysoffice
La Guerra Fría (cap.15) Revolución China 1949 a 1972 Mao Tse Tung
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 46:25
- Updated: 17 Feb 2013
Serie documental de 24 capítulos imprescindible para comprender la llamada "guerra fría". Comprende periodos desde la segunda guerra mundial y la división de Alemania por parte de los vencedores hasta la caída del muro de Berlín y la desaparición de la Unión Soviética, pasando por la crisis de los misiles, la guerra de Corea, Vietnam o la invasión de Afganistán por parte de la URSS. Entrevistas a personajes como George Bush (padre), Mijaíl Gorbachov, Fidel Castro, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Ortega, altos cargos militares y de la CIA o el KGB, y muchos otros como embajadores de ambos lados, periodistas y testigos directos, hacen que este documento grafico sea imprescindible en la colección de todo aquel que le guste la historia. Cap 01 Enemigos históricos 1917 a 1945 Cap 02 El telón de acero 1945 a 1947 Cap 03 El plan Marshall 1947 a 1952 Cap 04 Berlín 1948 a 1949 Cap 05 Corea 1949 a 1953 Cap 06 comunistas 1947 a 1953 Cap 07 La herencia de Stalin 1953 a 1956 Cap 08 Spútnik 1949 a 1961 Cap 09 El muro de Berlín 1958 a 1963 Cap 10 Misiles en Cuba 1959 a 1962 Cap 11 Vietnam 1954 a 1968 Cap 12 Destrucción Mutua Asegurada 1960 a 1972 Cap 13 Haz el amor y no la guerra 60s Cap 14 La primavera de Praga 60s Cap 15 Revolución China 1949 a 1972 Mao Tse Tung Cap 16 La Distensión 1969 a 1975 Cap 17 África y Oriente Medio 1967 a 1978 Cap 18 Intrigas en Latinoamérica 1954 a 1990 Cap 19 El despertar de la solidaridad 1977 a 1981 Cap 20 Los soldados de Dios 1975 a 1988 Cap 21 ...
http://wn.com/La_Guerra_Fría_cap15_Revolución_China_1949_a_1972_Mao_Tse_Tung
Serie documental de 24 capítulos imprescindible para comprender la llamada "guerra fría". Comprende periodos desde la segunda guerra mundial y la división de Alemania por parte de los vencedores hasta la caída del muro de Berlín y la desaparición de la Unión Soviética, pasando por la crisis de los misiles, la guerra de Corea, Vietnam o la invasión de Afganistán por parte de la URSS. Entrevistas a personajes como George Bush (padre), Mijaíl Gorbachov, Fidel Castro, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Ortega, altos cargos militares y de la CIA o el KGB, y muchos otros como embajadores de ambos lados, periodistas y testigos directos, hacen que este documento grafico sea imprescindible en la colección de todo aquel que le guste la historia. Cap 01 Enemigos históricos 1917 a 1945 Cap 02 El telón de acero 1945 a 1947 Cap 03 El plan Marshall 1947 a 1952 Cap 04 Berlín 1948 a 1949 Cap 05 Corea 1949 a 1953 Cap 06 comunistas 1947 a 1953 Cap 07 La herencia de Stalin 1953 a 1956 Cap 08 Spútnik 1949 a 1961 Cap 09 El muro de Berlín 1958 a 1963 Cap 10 Misiles en Cuba 1959 a 1962 Cap 11 Vietnam 1954 a 1968 Cap 12 Destrucción Mutua Asegurada 1960 a 1972 Cap 13 Haz el amor y no la guerra 60s Cap 14 La primavera de Praga 60s Cap 15 Revolución China 1949 a 1972 Mao Tse Tung Cap 16 La Distensión 1969 a 1975 Cap 17 África y Oriente Medio 1967 a 1978 Cap 18 Intrigas en Latinoamérica 1954 a 1990 Cap 19 El despertar de la solidaridad 1977 a 1981 Cap 20 Los soldados de Dios 1975 a 1988 Cap 21 ...
- published: 21 Feb 2012
- views: 39149
- author: jesusguzmangallardo
45:54
Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)...
published: 14 Oct 2012
author: Jonathan Lennon
Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
Biography Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
- published: 14 Oct 2012
- views: 22331
- author: Jonathan Lennon
43:38
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung...
published: 04 Feb 2012
author: ngphutrongbannuoc
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
China - Chairman Mao Declassified - Mad dog Mao Zedong Mao Tse Tung
- published: 04 Feb 2012
- views: 50181
- author: ngphutrongbannuoc
9:24
Declassified - Chairman Mao - China - Communist Part 1
A profound look into the rise of Communist China. Better than fiction. Please support the ...
published: 09 May 2010
author: AscendingIntellect
Declassified - Chairman Mao - China - Communist Part 1
A profound look into the rise of Communist China. Better than fiction. Please support the History Channel @ www.History.com. The History Channel does not endorse RAAI, but we are avid fans promoting and using their material in our reporting according to Fair Use laws.
- published: 09 May 2010
- views: 48394
- author: AscendingIntellect
43:57
Grandes biografías Mao Tse Tung documental online
Mao Tse Tung fue uno de los hombres mas importantes de la historia moderna de china, pues ...
published: 10 Mar 2011
author: pedroleon2020
Grandes biografías Mao Tse Tung documental online
Mao Tse Tung fue uno de los hombres mas importantes de la historia moderna de china, pues impulso grandes cambios en la vida de sus abitantes. La historia politica de Mao esta llena de contradicciones, puesto que aunque promovio reformas importantes para el desarrollo de china, por otro lado impuso su ideologia con un encarnizado derramamiento de sangre.
- published: 10 Mar 2011
- views: 100325
- author: pedroleon2020
4:13
Mao Zedong famous speeches (1893-1978)
3 famous speeches of legendary chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. 1st speech: from 0:00m...
published: 24 Jul 2008
author: HigginsSnooker
Mao Zedong famous speeches (1893-1978)
3 famous speeches of legendary chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. 1st speech: from 0:00min to 2:13min 2nd speech: from 2:14min to 3:26min 3rd speech: from 3:27min to end.
- published: 24 Jul 2008
- views: 183012
- author: HigginsSnooker
6:26
John Adams - Nixon in China - I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung - Kathleen Kim
Kathleen Kim as Madame Mao in Met's production of John Adams opera Nixon in China. Februar...
published: 10 Jun 2011
author: Pedrogm85
John Adams - Nixon in China - I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung - Kathleen Kim
Kathleen Kim as Madame Mao in Met's production of John Adams opera Nixon in China. February 2011.
- published: 10 Jun 2011
- views: 30175
- author: Pedrogm85
4:17
I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung (Nixon in China)
Hye Jung Lee performs "I am the Wife of Mao Zedong" from Nixon in China by John Adams. Law...
published: 01 Jul 2011
author: HectorJW2007
I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung (Nixon in China)
Hye Jung Lee performs "I am the Wife of Mao Zedong" from Nixon in China by John Adams. Lawrence Foster conducting the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. Ms. Lee will play Madame Mao in "Nixon in China" for San Francisco Opera in 2012.
- published: 01 Jul 2011
- views: 21241
- author: HectorJW2007
6:25
Nixon In China: Act II Scene 2b - I'm the Wife of Mao Zedong
store.operapassion.com John Adams's first opera Nixon In China (1985-7), produced by Peter...
published: 21 Apr 2008
author: musicvideoing
Nixon In China: Act II Scene 2b - I'm the Wife of Mao Zedong
store.operapassion.com John Adams's first opera Nixon In China (1985-7), produced by Peter Sellars, with libretto by Alice Goodman, about the visit of Richard Nixon to China in 1972, where he met with Mao Zedong and other Chinese officials. Act II Ending - Madam Mao desires to save the peasants at all costs leading her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place. Eventually, a riot develops on stage with Chou and Madam Mao on opposite sides - the opera has become a rerun of the Cultural Revolution. - Quote from Lyrics: (Chiang Ch'ing 江青)"I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung who raised the weak above the strong. When I appear[,] the people hang upon my words".
- published: 21 Apr 2008
- views: 51396
- author: musicvideoing
7:24
Glenn Beck Video Of Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"
Joking? More here: hotairpundit.blogspot.com...
published: 15 Oct 2009
author: Speakmymind02
Glenn Beck Video Of Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"
Joking? More here: hotairpundit.blogspot.com
- published: 15 Oct 2009
- views: 55576
- author: Speakmymind02
5:56
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!...
published: 13 Nov 2010
author: lazarodesouzagomes
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
The Internationale in Chinese: Mao Zedong Tribute!
- published: 13 Nov 2010
- views: 9322
- author: lazarodesouzagomes
13:11
2of7 Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung
Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung was one of the wo...
published: 19 Nov 2010
author: rst5555
2of7 Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung
Bloody Revolution of Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung Mao Zedong / Mao Tse-Tung was one of the worst mass murderers of his time. According to assumptions made afterwards of people killed directly or indirectly by starvation or diseases only to be surpassed by Stalin. "Bloody Revolution of Mao",...
- published: 19 Nov 2010
- views: 2261
- author: rst5555
Vimeo results:
0:04
Mao Zedong watch
Say hello to Mao.
I bought it in Hong Kong.
I guess I really got ripped off when I bought...
published: 06 Apr 2012
author: Jiyeon Kim
Mao Zedong watch
Say hello to Mao.
I bought it in Hong Kong.
I guess I really got ripped off when I bought it.
But I like it. It's really cute, isn't it?
1:16
Posters Of Mao Zedong
published: 07 Jan 2013
author: Old Westbury Oral Histories
Posters Of Mao Zedong
8:01
The Cult of Mao Zedong
One of my favorite episode from the NewsHour series China on the Rise, which I co-produced...
published: 03 Nov 2009
author: Jacob Klein
The Cult of Mao Zedong
One of my favorite episode from the NewsHour series China on the Rise, which I co-produced and edited. View the full series here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/china/
Youtube results:
6:05
Alabama 3 live at the Astoria "Mao Tse Tung says"
This is one that I edited. Rob came over to my house to have a look at the cut and he was ...
published: 13 Jun 2007
author: zynsk
Alabama 3 live at the Astoria "Mao Tse Tung says"
This is one that I edited. Rob came over to my house to have a look at the cut and he was very happy.
- published: 13 Jun 2007
- views: 90239
- author: zynsk
1:23
Nixon in China - "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung" excerpt - The Metropolitan Opera
Excerpt from the final dress rehearsal of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the Met Opera on...
published: 01 Feb 2011
author: MetropolitanOpera
Nixon in China - "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung" excerpt - The Metropolitan Opera
Excerpt from the final dress rehearsal of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the Met Opera on January 31, 2011. Buy tickets for performances through February 19, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org See it Live in HD at movie theaters around the world on Saturday February 12, 2011: www.metoperafamily.org For more information about the Metropolitan Opera, please visit us at: www.metopera.org Connect with us! Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter: www.twitter.com
- published: 01 Feb 2011
- views: 25771
- author: MetropolitanOpera
3:05
Obama Cabinet Member Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"; Truth is subjective
...
published: 15 Oct 2009
author: Greg Hengler
Obama Cabinet Member Anita Dunn: Mao Tse Tung "Favorite Philosopher"; Truth is subjective
- published: 15 Oct 2009
- views: 82335
- author: Greg Hengler
1:56
Network - The Mao Tse Tung Hour Negotiations
The sometimes dramatic negotiations by the underground leader Laureen Hobbs and the networ...
published: 14 Feb 2009
author: ascetica0
Network - The Mao Tse Tung Hour Negotiations
The sometimes dramatic negotiations by the underground leader Laureen Hobbs and the network over the new hit UBS show The Mao Tse Tung Hour. From Network (1976)
- published: 14 Feb 2009
- views: 8039
- author: ascetica0
photo: AP / David Guttenfelder
07 Mar 2013
Posted. March 7, 2013. North Korea threatened a preemptive nuclear attack against the United States ahead of an upcoming vote on additional UN sanctions against Pyongyang. The country also accused the United States of performing military drills in South Korea as a launching pad for nuclear war. North Korea adds that it plans to scrap the armistice that ended Korean War hostilities ... The statement read. ... Category. Asia. Tags ... Posted ... ....(size: 2.5Kb)
photo: AP / Aaron Favila
05 Mar 2013
Manila. Members of a major Philippine Muslim rebel force who were meant to have disarmed in the 1990s as part of a peace pact are involved in deadly battles in Malaysia, the group’s leader said on Tuesday. Nur Misuari, who founded the Moro National Liberation Front in the late 1960s, confirmed “freedom fighters” from his group were part of the militia sent by a self-proclaimed sultan to claim the Malaysian state of Sabah....(size: 2.6Kb)
photo: AP / Bullit Marquez
07 Mar 2013
The conflict has wreaked political havoc for both Malaysia and the neighboring Philippines ... Ismail said at least 52 Filipinos have now been killed in the past week since hostilities in the Sabah security crisis escalated ... World news....(size: 1.3Kb)
photo: AP / Ariel Schalit
07 Mar 2013
9.58 PM. The U.N. is demanding the immediate release of 21 peacekeepers seized by members of the Syrian opposition in the disputed Golan Heights area between Syria and Israel. Here's a statement from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. ... "The Secretary-General reminds all actors in Syria that UNDOF is mandated to monitor the Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria ... The U.N ... A U.N ... Here's more from The New York Times. ... U.N ... ....(size: 4.0Kb)
photo: US Army / Edward N. Johnson
06 Mar 2013
North Korea has threatened to cancel the 1953 ceasefire that ended the Korean War, citing a US-led push for punishing UN sanctions over its recent nuclear test and ongoing US-South Korean joint military drills. The threat came on Tuesday as the United States, with Chinese backing, introduced a draft UN resolution to punish North Korea for its nuclear test on February 12 ... 415 Source.. Agencies. Share. Send Feedback ... China ... News ... ....(size: 7.2Kb)
South China Morning Post
07 Mar 2013
Could Harvard be on the cards for the great grandchildren of China's revolutionary leader Mao Zedong? ... "Mao Zedong's military theory is far better than the The Art of War." ... He claims he was promoted on his "own efforts" - after all, he once was a student of his grandfather's political theories, or Mao Zedong Thought....(size: 3.4Kb)
Huffington Post
07 Mar 2013
Despite recent controversy, a gun store in Merrimack, N.H., plans to keep displaying a poster in its front window naming President Obama "firearms salesman of the year." The poster hangs opposite another contentious poster featuring Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong ... ... We owe him a thank you." ... “To depict the president with AK-47s crossed in front of him and link him with Stalin, Hitler and Mao, that’s way over the top." ... Like ... ....(size: 3.2Kb)
Lexington Herald-Leader
07 Mar 2013
The Cultural Revolution, which then-Chinese leader Mao Zedong championed in 1966, left millions terrorized, injured or dead by its end a decade later ... Lurking just beneath any discussion of the Cultural Revolution is the legacy of Mao, the founding father of the party and Communist China. In 1981, the party acknowledged that Mao was responsible for the Cultural Revolution ... So Mao’s prestige remains beyond question in China....(size: 8.1Kb)
Asia Times
07 Mar 2013
Mao Zedong incorporated the theory into his strategic thinking, and it was recently discussed in Chinese media as a strategy that had succeeded in making the Japanese miserable over the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute ... Meanwhile, incoming leader Xi Jinping is dedicated to lead China toward "socialism with Chinese characteristics'' with Mao's strategic ......(size: 8.9Kb)
BBC News
07 Mar 2013
Media in China mourn the death of Venezuelan leader and "good friend" Hugo Chavez and believe an opposition victory will not derail ties ... He recalls how Mr Chavez often quoted the revolutionary ideas of Mao Zedong and his favourite Chinese dishes were Peking duck, sea cucumber and Kung Pao chicken ... "The UN Security Council is discussing how to respond to North Korea's nuclear test ... Tensions "exaggerated" ... ....(size: 5.1Kb)
Bloomberg
07 Mar 2013
competitiveness ... Why don’t these workers move to more productive jobs in more dynamic settings? In formal terms, it is because their “reservation wage” has increased -- that is, the minimum wage they demand to move is much greater than their current wage, because for a generation that didn’t experience the hardships of the Mao Zedong era, the monetary and emotional costs of relocation have risen ... The opinions expressed are their own.)....(size: 6.3Kb)
noodls
07 Mar 2013
(Source. University of Sydney) Xi must smash vested interest of China's elite. By Kerry Brown. First published in The Australian. 7 March 2013 ... They will therefore be one-termers ... In their future policy, are they going to give non-state companies greater powers, or are they going to stand by the state-owned enterprises? Mao Zedong famously said that the key question of revolution was who were your enemies and who your friends ... (noodl....(size: 6.4Kb)
Huffington Post
07 Mar 2013
By James Pomfret. SHANGPU, China, March 7 (Reuters) - Torched vehicles and violent clashes in the Chinese village of Shangpu as farmers protest the loss of land to developers is an uncomfortable reminder to Beijing's incoming leadership that, for many, pledges of reform to prevent land grabs ring hollow ... They want the land back and the contract scrapped ... RULE OF LAW ... His father was the ex-husband of a woman who later married Mao Zedong ... ....(size: 11.6Kb)
News24
07 Mar 2013
Liu, aged 50, is a rare example of a member of China's Han ethnic majority taking up the Tibetan cause - a project that has finally brought the authorities to his door ... Guards equipped with fire extinguishers are posted on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, their numbers boosted for China's current National People's Congress meeting, where the Tibetan delegates are hand-picked loyalists whose leader was seen wearing a Mao Zedong badge ... - AFP....(size: 15.2Kb)
noodls
06 Mar 2013
A stamp collector from Jiangsu province shows stamps that mark the 50th anniversary of late Chairman Mao Zedong's call to "learn from Lei Feng," the country's most famous Good Samaritan, March 5, 2013.[Photo/Xinhua]....(size: 1.4Kb)
Chosunilbo
06 Mar 2013
Mao Xinyu, the only grandson of Mao Zedong and a major general in China's People's Liberation Army, has clled on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions ... development" the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Mao as saying on Tuesday....(size: 1.2Kb)
The Miami Herald
06 Mar 2013
The Cultural Revolution, which then-Chinese leader Mao Zedong championed in 1966, left millions terrorized, injured or dead by its end a decade later ... Lurking just beneath any discussion of the Cultural Revolution is the legacy of Mao, the founding father of the party and Communist China. In 1981, the party acknowledged that Mao was responsible for the Cultural Revolution ... So Mao’s prestige remains beyond question in China....(size: 3.8Kb)
China Daily
06 Mar 2013
Mao Zedong, an enthusiastic reader throughout his life, devoured a wide range of topics from history to Buddhism, fiction and military science ... Mao, who worked as a librarian at Peking University for four months in 1918, was a famous poet and many of his works are included in Chinese-language textbooks ... ....(size: 1.5Kb)
"Mao" redirects here. For other uses, see Mao (disambiguation).
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Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung listen (help·info), and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held authoritarian control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.
Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion,[1] and leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. After solidifying the reunification of China through his Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Mao enacted sweeping land reform, by using violence and terror to overthrow the feudal landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes.[2][3] During the years when Mao was China’s 'Great Helmsman', a range of positive changes came to China. These included promoting the status of women, improving popular literacy, doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy.[4][5] In addition, China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership[6] (from around 550 to over 900 million).[3][5] As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many in China as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists further promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary,[7] while anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.
However, Mao remains a controversial figure to this day, with a contentious legacy that is subject to continuing revision and fierce debate. Nationwide political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are often considered catastrophic failures; while his rule is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people.[8][9] Severe starvation during the Great Chinese Famine, mass suicide as a result of the Three-anti/five-anti campaigns, and political persecution during both the Anti-Rightist Movement and struggle sessions all resulted from these programs. His campaigns and their varying disastrous consequences are further blamed for damaging the culture and society of China, as historical relics were destroyed and religious sites were ransacked.
Although Mao's stated goals of combating bureaucracy, encouraging popular participation, and stressing China’s self-reliance are generally seen as laudable—and the rapid industrialization that began during Mao’s reign is credited for laying a foundation for China’s development in the late 20th century—the harsh methods he used to pursue them, including torture and executions, have been widely rebuked as being ruthless and self-defeating.[3] Mao is still regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history,[10] and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time magazine.[11]
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Early life[link]
Mao was born on December 26, 1893, in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, China. His father was a poor peasant who became a prosperous farmer and grain dealer. At age 8 he began studying at the village primary school, but left school at 13 to work on the family farm. He later left the farm to continue his studies at a secondary school in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. When the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing Dynasty broke out in 1911 he joined the Revolutionary Army in Hunan. In the spring of 1912 the war ended, the Republic of China was founded and Mao left the army. He eventually returned to school,[12] and in 1918 graduated from the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan.
Following his graduation, Mao travelled to Beijing, where he lived with Yang Changji, his college teacher and future father-in-law, who had taken a position at Peking University. Yang recommended him highly: "These two people [ Mao and Cai Hesen ] are rare talents in China and will have a great future." At his recommendation, Mao worked as an assistant librarian at the University Library under the curator-ship of Li Dazhao, who would come to greatly influence Mao's future thought. Mao registered as a part-time student at Beijing University and attended a few lectures and seminars by intellectuals, such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, and Qian Xuantong. After moving back to Changsha, he became headmaster of a school and was involved in provincial cultural and educational agitation. He renewed his friendship with Yang Kaihui, Professor Yang's daughter, eight years younger than he, and the two became lovers, then married despite Mao's earlier marriage with Luo Yixiu arranged by his father at home, which Mao never acknowledged. (In October 1930, the Kuomintang (KMT) captured Yang Kaihui as well as her son, Mao Anying). A number of his friends and future colleagues took advantage of the Mouvement Travail-Études to study in France, but Mao, perhaps because of a lack of ability to learn languages and the requirement to learn French, turned down the opportunity.[13]
On July 23, 1921, Mao, now age 27, attended the first session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. Two years later, he was elected as one of the five commissars of the Central Committee of the Party during the third Congress session. Later that year, Mao returned to Hunan at the instruction of the CPC Central Committee to organize the Hunan branch of the Kuomintang after KMT premier Sun Yat-sen began a policy of active cooperation with the Chinese Communists.[14]
In 1924, he was a delegate to the first National Conference of the Kuomintang, where he was elected an Alternate Executive of the Central Committee. That year he became an Executive of the Shanghai branch of the Kuomintang and Secretary of the Organization Department.
For a while, Mao remained in Shanghai, an important city that the CPC emphasized for the Revolution. However, the Party encountered major difficulties organizing labor union movements and building a relationship with its nationalist ally, the KMT. The Party had become poor, and Mao was disillusioned with the revolution and moved back to Shaoshan. During his stay at home, Mao's interest in the revolution was rekindled after hearing of the 1925 uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou. His political ambitions returned, and he then went to Guangdong, the base of the Kuomintang, to take part in the preparations for the second session of the National Congress of Kuomintang. In October 1925, Mao became acting Propaganda Director of the Kuomintang.
In early 1927, Mao returned to Hunan where, in an urgent meeting held by the Communist Party, he made a report based on his investigations of the peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition. His "Report on the Peasant Movement in Hunan" is considered the initial and decisive step towards the successful application of Mao's revolutionary theories.[15]
Political ideas[link]
Main article: Maoism
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After graduating from the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan, the highest level of schooling available in his province, Mao spent six months studying independently. Mao was first introduced to communism while working at Peking University as a library assistant, and in 1921 he attended the organizational meeting of the Communist Party of China (or CPC). Important influences on Mao were the Russian revolution and, according to some scholars, the Chinese literary works: Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Mao sought to subvert the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China. He thought the KMT to be both economically and politically vulnerable and thus that the revolution could not be steered by Nationalists.
Throughout the 1920s, Mao led several labour struggles based upon his studies of the propagation and organization of the contemporary labour movements.[16] However, these struggles were successfully subdued by the government, and Mao fled from Changsha, Hunan after he was labelled a radical activist. He pondered these failures and finally realized that industrial workers were unable to lead the revolution because they made up only a small portion of China's population, and unarmed labour struggles could not resolve the problems of imperial and feudal suppression. Mao began to depend on Chinese peasants who later became staunch supporters of his theory of violent revolution. This dependence on the rural rather than the urban proletariat to instigate violent revolution distinguished Mao from his predecessors and contemporaries. Mao himself was from a peasant family, and thus he cultivated his reputation among the farmers and peasants and introduced them to Marxism.[15][17]
His two 1937 essays, On Practice[18] and On Contradiction,[19] are concerned with the practical strategies of a revolutionary movement and stress the importance of practical, grass-roots knowledge obtained through experience. Both essays reflect the guerrilla roots of Maoism in the need to build up support in the countryside against a Japanese occupying force and emphasise the need to win over hearts and minds through 'education'. The essays, excerpts of which appear in the 'Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong', warn against the behaviour of the blindfolded man trying to catch sparrows, and the 'Imperial envoy' descending from his carriage to 'spout opinions' .
War[link]
Main articles: Long March, Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and Chinese Revolution (1949)
"Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."
In 1927, after a large-scale purge of Communists from the Kuomintang in Shanghai that ended their alliance during the Northern Expedition, Mao conducted the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha as commander-in-chief. Mao led an army, called the "Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants", which was defeated by the KMT forces and scattered after fierce battles. Afterwards, the exhausted troops were forced to leave Hunan for Sanwan, Jiangxi, where Mao re-organized the scattered soldiers, rearranging the military division into smaller regiments. Mao also ordered that each company must have a party branch office with a commissar as its leader who would give political instructions based upon superior mandates. This military rearrangement in Sanwan, Jiangxi initiated the CPC's absolute control over its military force and is considered to have had a fundamental and profound impact upon the Chinese revolution. Later, the army moved to the Jinggang Mountains, Jiangxi. In the Jinggang Mountains, Mao persuaded two local insurgent leaders to pledge their allegiance to him. There, Mao joined his army with that of Zhu De, creating the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, Red Army in short. Mao's tactics were based on that of the Spanish Guerrillas during the Napoleonic Wars.[citation needed]
From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic in the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to He Zizhen. His previous wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three years after their departure. In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them.[22]
It is reported that horrible methods of torture were employed under Mao's direction,[23] and given names such as 'sitting in a sedan chair', 'airplane ride', 'toad-drinking water', and 'monkey pulling reins.' The wives of several suspects that defied him had their breasts cut open and their genitals burned.[23] It estimated that tens of thousands of suspected enemies,[24] perhaps as many as 186,000,[25] were killed during this purge. Critics accuse Mao's authority in Jiangxi of being secured and reassured through the revolutionary terrorism, or red terrorism.[26]
Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the KMT purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare (youji zhan) and mobile warfare (yundong zhan). Mao's doctrines of guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare were based upon the fact of the poor armament and military training of the Red Army which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were fired by revolutionary passions and the aspiration for a communist utopia.
Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled "soviet areas", under control of the CPC.[27] The relative prosperity of "soviet areas" startled and worried Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang government, who waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the "central soviet area." More than one million Kuomintang soldiers were involved in these five campaigns, four of which were defeated by the Red Army led by Mao. By June 1932 (the height of its power), the Red Army had no less than 45,000 soldiers, with a further 200,000 local militia acting as a subsidiary force.[28]
Under increasing pressure from the KMT Encirclement Campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the 28 Bolsheviks. Chiang, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March", a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the north west of China. It was during this 9,600-kilometer (6,000 mi), year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.
In 1936 Manchurian warlord and Chiang's former ally Zhang Xueliang decided to conspire with the CPC and kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an to force an end to the conflict between KMT and CPC. To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT was forced to agree to a temporary end to the Chinese Civil War and the forming of a United Front between the CPC and KMT against Japan. The alliance took place with salutary effects for the beleaguered CPC after relentless attacks by Chiang's forces. CPC agreed to form the New Fourth Army and the 8th Route Army which were nominally under the command of the National Revolutionary Army.
During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao advocated a strategy of avoiding open confrontations with the Japanese army and concentrating on guerrilla warfare from his base in Yan'an, while leaving the KMT to take on the brunt of the fighting and suffer tremendous casualties.[29] Instead Mao directed the CPC forces to concentrate on absorbing, and eliminating if necessary, Chinese militia behind enemy lines. This led to intensified conflicts between KMT and CPC forces, and the fragile alliance broke down after the New Fourth Army incident in January 1941. Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the Shu Fan movement, or "Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei, and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen[citation needed] and married the actress Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing.
Mao also greatly expanded CPC's sphere of influence in areas outside of Japanese control, mainly through rural mass organizations, administrative, land and tax reform measures favouring poor peasants; while the Nationalists attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence by military blockade of areas controlled by CPC and fighting the Japanese at the same time.[31]
In 1944, the Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Communist Party of China. According to Edwin Moise, in Modern China: A History 2nd Edition:
- Most of the Americans were favourably impressed. The CPC seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the KMT. United States fliers shot down over North China...confirmed to their superiors that the CPC was both strong and popular over a broad area. In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CPC led to very little.
File:Marshallmao.jpg
General George Marshall and Mao Zedong in Yan'an
After the end of World War II, the U.S. continued their military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT government forces against the People's Liberation Army (PLA) led by Mao Zedong in the civil war for control of China. Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi-covert support to Mao by their occupation of north east China, which allowed the PLA to move in en masse and took large supplies of arms left by the Japanese's Kwantung Army.
In 1948, under direct orders from Mao, the People’s Liberation Army starved out the Kuomintang forces occupying the city of Changchun. At least 160,000 civilians are believed to have perished during the siege, which lasted from June until October. PLA lieutenant colonel Zhang Zhenglu, who documented the siege in his book White Snow, Red Blood, compared it to Hiroshima: “The casualties were about the same. Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun took five months.”[32] On January 21, 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered great losses in battles against Mao's forces. In the early morning of December 10, 1949, PLA troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-held city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan.
Leadership of China[link]
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The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949. It was the culmination of over two decades of civil and international wars. From 1943 to 1976, Mao was the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. During this period, Mao was called Chairman Mao (毛主席) or the Great Leader Chairman Mao (伟大领袖毛主席). Mao famously announced: "The Chinese people have stood up." [33]
Mao took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he ordered the construction of an indoor swimming pool and other buildings. Mao often did his work either in bed or by the side of the pool, preferring not to wear formal clothes unless absolutely necessary, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, his personal physician. (Li's book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, is regarded as controversial, especially by those sympathetic to Mao.)
In October 1950, Mao made the decision to send the People's Volunteer Army into Korea and fight against the United Nations forces led by the U.S. Historical records showed that Mao directed the PVA campaigns in the Korean War to the minute details.[34]
Along with land reform, during which significant numbers of landlords and well-to-do peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings organized by the Communist Party as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants,[35] there was also the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries,[36] which involved public executions targeting mainly former Kuomintang officials, businessmen accused of "disturbing" the market, former employees of Western companies and intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect.[37] The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, and 800,000 killed in the counterrevolutionary campaign.[38]
Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were executed during the years 1949–53.[39] However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",[40] the number of deaths range between 2 million[40][41] and 5 million.[42][43] In addition, at least 1.5 million people,[44] perhaps as many as 4 to 6 million,[45] were sent to "reform through labour" camps where many perished.[45] Mao played a personal role in organizing the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas,[46] which were often exceeded.[36] He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.[47]
Starting in 1951, Mao initiated two successive movements in an effort to rid urban areas of corruption by targeting wealthy capitalists and political opponents, known as the three-anti/five-anti campaigns. A climate of raw terror developed as workers denounced their bosses, spouses turned on their spouses, and children informed on their parents; the victims often were humiliated at struggle sessions, a method designed to intimidate and terrify people to the maximum. Mao insisted that minor offenders be criticized and reformed or sent to labor camps, "while the worst among them should be shot." These campaigns took several hundred thousand additional lives, the vast majority via suicide.[48]
In Shanghai, suicide by jumping from tall buildings became so commonplace that residents avoided walking on the pavement near skyscrapers for fear that suicides might land on them.[49] Some biographers have pointed out that driving those perceived as enemies to suicide was a common tactic during the Mao-era. For example, in his biography of Mao, Philip Short notes that in the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Mao gave explicit instructions that "no cadre is to be killed," but in practice allowed security chief Kang Sheng to drive opponents to suicide and that "this pattern was repeated throughout his leadership of the People's Republic."[50]
Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched the First Five-Year Plan (1953–58). The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence upon agriculture in order to become a world power. With the Soviet Union's assistance, new industrial plants were built and agricultural production eventually fell to a point where industry was beginning to produce enough capital that China no longer needed the USSR's support. The success of the First-Five Year Plan was to encourage Mao to instigate the Second Five-Year Plan, the Great Leap Forward, in 1958. Mao also launched a phase of rapid collectivization. The CPC introduced price controls as well as a Chinese character simplification aimed at increasing literacy. Large-scale industrialization projects were also undertaken.
Programs pursued during this time include the Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was initially tolerated and encouraged. After a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and persecuted those, totalling perhaps 500,000, who criticized, as well as those who were merely alleged to have criticized, the party in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement. Authors such as Jung Chang have alleged that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was merely a ruse to root out "dangerous" thinking.[51]
Others such as Dr Li Zhisui have suggested that Mao had initially seen the policy as a way of weakening those within his party who opposed him, but was surprised by the extent of criticism and the fact that it began to be directed at his own leadership.[52] It was only then that he used it as a method of identifying and subsequently persecuting those critical of his government. The Hundred Flowers movement led to the condemnation, silencing, and death of many citizens, also linked to Mao's Anti-Rightist Movement, with death tolls possibly in the millions.[citation needed]
Great Leap Forward[link]
In January 1958, Mao Zedong launched the second Five-Year Plan, known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants were ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and on the production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.
Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labor to steel production and infrastructure projects, these projects combined with cyclical natural disasters led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by a further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961 (Spence, 553).
In an effort to win favor with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them. Based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use, primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, left rural peasants with little food for themselves and many millions starved to death in the largest famine known as the Great Chinese Famine. This famine was a direct cause of the death of some 30 million Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962 and about the same number of births were lost or postponed.[53] Further, many children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of hardship and struggle for survival died shortly after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 (Spence, 553).
The extent of Mao's knowledge of the severity of the situation has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao was not aware that the situation amounted to more than a slight shortage of food and general supplies until late 1959.[citation needed]
"But I do not think that when he spoke on July 2, 1959, he knew how bad the disaster had become, and he believed the party was doing everything it could to manage the situation."
Hong Kong-based historian Frank Dikötter, who has sifted through well over a thousand documents in recently opened (2005–2009)[54] Chinese local and regional party archives, challenges the notion that Mao did not know about the famine until it was too late:
"The idea that the state mistakenly took too much grain from the countryside because it assumed that the harvest was much larger than it was is largely a myth – at most partially true for the autumn of 1958 only. In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death. At a secret meeting in the Jinjiang Hotel in Shanghai dated March 25, 1959, Mao specifically ordered the party to procure up to one third of all the grain, much more than had ever been the case. At the meeting he announced that 'When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.'" [55]
In Hungry Ghosts, Jasper Becker notes that Mao was dismissive of reports he received of food shortages in the countryside and refused to change course, believing that peasants were lying and that rightists and kulaks were hoarding grain. He refused to open state granaries,[56] and instead launched a series of "anti-grain concealment" drives that resulted in numerous purges and suicides.[57] Other violent campaigns followed in which party leaders went from village to village in search of hidden food reserves, and not only grain, as Mao issued quotas for pigs, chickens, ducks and eggs. Many peasants accused of hiding food were tortured and beaten to death.[58]
In contrast, journals such as the Monthly Review have disputed the reliability of the figures commonly cited, the qualitative evidence of a "massive death toll", and Mao's complicity in those deaths which occurred.[59]
Whatever the case, the Great Leap Forward caused Mao to lose esteem among many of the top party cadres and was eventually forced to abandon the policy in 1962, while losing some political power to moderate leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping in the process. However, Mao, supported by national propaganda, claimed that he was only partly to blame. As a result, he was able to remain Chairman of the Communist Party, with the Presidency transferred to Liu Shaoqi.
The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel quotas were officially reached, almost all of the supposed steel made in the countryside was iron, as it had been made from assorted scrap metal in home-made furnaces with no reliable source of fuel such as coal. This meant that proper smelting conditions could not be achieved. According to Zhang Rongmei, a geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:
"We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put everything in a big fire and melted down all the metal."
The worst of the famine was steered towards enemies of the state.[60] As Jasper Becker explains:
"The most vulnerable section of China's population, around five per cent, were those whom Mao called 'enemies of the people'. Anyone who had in previous campaigns of repression been labeled a 'black element' was given the lowest priority in the allocation of food. Landlords, rich peasants, former members of the nationalist regime, religious leaders, rightists, counter-revolutionaries and the families of such individuals died in the greatest numbers."[61]
Consequences[link]
At the Lushan Conference in July/August 1959, several leaders expressed concern that the Great Leap Forward had not proved as successful as planned. The most direct of these was Minister of Defence and Korean War General Peng Dehuai. Mao, fearing loss of his position, orchestrated a purge of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap policies. Senior officials who reported the truth of the famine to Mao were branded as "right opportunists."[62] A campaign against right opportunism was launched and resulted in party members and ordinary peasants being sent to camps where many would subsequently die in the famine. Years later the CPC would conclude that 6 million people were wrongly punished in the campaign.[63]
The number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward is deeply controversial. Until the mid 1980s, when official census figures were finally published by the Chinese Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed access during this time had been restricted to model villages where they were deceived into believing that the Great Leap Forward had been a great success. There was also an assumption that the flow of individual reports of starvation that had been reaching the West, primarily through Hong Kong and Taiwan, must be localized or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. Because Mao wanted to pay back early to the Soviets debts totaling 1.973 billion yuan from 1960 to 1962,[64] exports increased by 50%, and fellow Communist regimes in North Korea, North Vietnam and Albania were provided grain free of charge.[56]
Censuses were carried out in China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyse this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr. Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China during 1958–61, and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed under-reporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30 million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang.[65] Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who had privileged access and connections available to no other scholars, estimates a death toll of 36 million.[64] Frank Dikötter estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths attributable to the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962.[66][67] Various other sources have put the figure at between 20 and 46 million.[68]
On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China. The Sino-Soviet split resulted in Nikita Khrushchev's withdrawal of all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered by arguments over the control and direction of world communism and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy.[citation needed] Most of the problems regarding communist unity resulted from the death of Stalin in March 1953 and his replacement by Khrushchev. Only Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha openly sided with China against the Soviets, which began an alliance between the two countries which would last until the Sino-Albanian split after Mao's death in 1976.
Stalin had established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought well before Mao controlled the Communist Party of China, and therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a politically and militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the previous patron-client relationship between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the CPC.[citation needed] In China, the formerly favorable Soviets were now denounced as "revisionists" and listed alongside "American imperialism" as movements to oppose.[citation needed]
Partly surrounded by hostile American military bases (in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), China was now confronted with a new Soviet threat from the north and west. Both the internal crisis and the external threat called for extraordinary statesmanship from Mao, but as China entered the new decade the statesmen of the People's Republic were in hostile confrontation with each other.
At a large Communist Party conference in Beijing in January 1962, called the "Conference of the Seven Thousand," State Chairman Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap Forward as responsible for widespread famine.[69] The overwhelming majority of delegates expressed agreement, but Defense Minister Lin Biao staunchly defended Mao.[69] A brief period of liberalization followed while Mao and Lin plotted a comeback.[69] Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping rescued the economy by disbanding the people's communes, introducing elements of private control of peasant smallholdings and importing grain from Canada and Australia to mitigate the worst effects of famine.[citation needed]
Cultural Revolution[link]
Main article: Cultural Revolution
File:Destroy the old world Cultural Revolution poster.png
Chinese propaganda poster from the Cultural Revolution: "Destroy the old world. Forge the new world." A worker (or possibly Red Guard) crushes the crucifix, Buddha, and classical Chinese texts with a hammer; 1967.
Mao was concerned with the nature of post-1959 China. He saw that the revolution had replaced an old elite with a new one. He was concerned that those in power were becoming estranged from the people they were supposed to serve.
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Mao believed that a revolution of culture would unseat and unsettle the "ruling class" and keep China in a state of "perpetual revolution" that served the interests of the majority, not a tiny elite.[70] Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, then the State Chairman and General Secretary, respectively, had favored the idea that Mao should be removed from actual power but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic role, with the party upholding all of his positive contributions to the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as well. Many[who?] claim that Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Some scholars, such as Mobo Gao, claim the case for this is perhaps overstated.[71] Others, such as Frank Dikötter, hold that Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to wreak revenge on those who had dared to challenge him over the Great Leap Forward.[72]
Believing that certain liberal bourgeois elements of society continued to threaten the socialist framework, groups of young people known as the Red Guards struggled against authorities at all levels of society and even set up their own tribunals. Chaos reigned in many parts of the country, and millions were persecuted, including a famous philosopher, Chen Yuen. During the Cultural Revolution, the schools in China were closed and the young intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside to be "re-educated" by the peasants, where they performed hard manual labor and other work.
The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's traditional cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese citizens, as well as creating general economic and social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during this period, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into every part of Chinese life, depicted by such Chinese films as To Live, The Blue Kite and Farewell My Concubine. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.[68]
When Mao was informed of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to suicide, he is alleged to have commented: "People who try to commit suicide — don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people."[73] The authorities allowed the Red Guards to abuse and kill opponents of the regime. Said Xie Fuzhi, national police chief: "Don't say it is wrong of them to beat up bad persons: if in anger they beat someone to death, then so be it."[74] As a result, in August and September 1966, there were 1,772 people murdered in Beijing alone.[75]
It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao, who seemed to echo all of Mao's ideas, to become his successor. Lin was later officially named as Mao's successor. By 1971, however, a divide between the two men became apparent. Official history in China states that Lin was planning a military coup or an assassination attempt on Mao. Lin Biao died in a plane crash over the air space of Mongolia, presumably on his way to flee China, probably anticipating his arrest. The CPC declared that Lin was planning to depose Mao, and posthumously expelled Lin from the party. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CPC figures. The highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by the KGB.[76]
In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to either Parkinson's disease or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neuron disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking and heart trouble. Some also attributed Mao's decline in health to the betrayal of Lin Biao. Mao remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death.
This period is often looked at in official circles in China and in the West as a great stagnation or even of reversal for China. While many——an estimated 100 million——did suffer,[77] some scholars, such as Lee Feigon and Mobo Gao, claim there were many great advances, and in some sectors the Chinese economy continued to outperform the west.[78] They actually go so far as to conclude that the Cultural Revolution period actually laid the foundation for the spectacular growth that continues in China. During the Cultural Revolution, China exploded its first H-Bomb (1967), launched the Dong Fang Hong satellite (January 30, 1970), commissioned its first nuclear submarines and made various advances in science and technology. Healthcare was free, and living standards in the countryside continued to improve.[78]
Death[link]
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This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (April 2012) |
Mao had been in poorer health for several years and had declined visibly for at least six months prior to his death and there are unconfirmed reports that he possibly had A.L.S. or Lou Gehrig's disease.[79] Mao's last public appearance was in April 1976, where he met the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during the latter's one-day visit to Beijing.
At around 5:00 p.m. on September 2, 1976, Mao suffered a heart attack, far more severe than his previous two and affecting a much larger area of his heart. X-rays indicated that his current lung infection had worsened, and his urine output dropped to less than 300 cc a day.[citation needed] Mao was awake and alert throughout the crisis and asked his team of doctors, several times, whether he was in danger. His condition continued to fluctuate and his life hung in the balance. Three days later, on September 5, Mao's condition was still critical, and Hua Guofeng called Jiang Qing back from her trip.[which?] She spent only a few minutes visiting him in Building 202 (where Mao was staying) before returning to her own residence in the Spring Lotus Chamber.[citation needed] On the afternoon of September 7, Mao's condition took a turn for the worse. Jiang Qing went to Building 202 where she learned the news. Mao had just fallen asleep and needed the rest, but she insisted on rubbing his back and moving his limbs, and she sprinkled powder on his body. The medical team protested that the dust from the powder was not good for his lungs, but she instructed the nurses on duty to follow her example later. The next morning, September 8, she went again. She demanded the medical staff to change Mao's sleeping position, claiming that he had been lying too long on his left side.[citation needed] The doctor on duty objected, knowing that he could breathe only on his left side, but she had him moved nonetheless.[citation needed] Mao's breathing stopped and his face turned blue.[citation needed] Jiang Qing left the room while the medical staff put him on a respirator and performed emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Mao barely revived and Hua Guofeng urged Jiang Qing not to interfere further with the doctors' work, as her actions were detrimental to Mao's health and helped cause his death faster.[citation needed] Mao's organs failed quickly and he fell into a coma shortly before noon where he was put on life support machines. He was taken off life support over 12 hours later at midnight and was pronounced dead at 12:10 a.m. on September 9, 1976. September 9 was chosen to let Mao die on because it was an easy day to remember, being the ninth day of the ninth month of the calendar.[citation needed]
His body lay in state at the Great Hall of the People. A memorial service was held in Tiananmen Square on September 18, 1976. There was a three-minute silence observed during this service. His body was later placed into the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, even though he had wished to be cremated and had been one of the first high-ranking officials to sign the "Proposal that all Central Leaders be Cremated after Death" in November 1956.[80]
As anticipated after Mao’s death, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side was the left wing led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side was the right wing opposing these policies. Among the latter group, the right wing restorationists, led by Chairman Hua Guofeng, advocated a return to central planning along the Soviet model, whereas the right wing reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on market-oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy. Eventually, the reformers won control of the government. Deng Xiaoping, with clear seniority over Hua Guofeng, defeated Hua in a bloodless power struggle a few years later.
Legacy[link]
"[Mao] turned China from a feudal backwater into one of the most powerful countries in the World ... The Chinese system he overthrew was backward and corrupt; few would argue the fact that he dragged China into the 20th century. But at a cost in human lives that is staggering."
Mao remains a controversial figure and there is little agreement over his legacy. He is generally credited with having unified China and ending the previous decades of civil war. He is also credited with having improved the status women in China and improving literacy. His policies caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, more than any other Twentieth Century leader, however supporters point out that in spite of this life expectancy improved during his reign. Supporters claim that he rapidly industrialized China, but detractors claim that his policies, particularly the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, were impediments to industrialization and modernization. Supporters claim that his policies laid the groundwork for China’s later rise to become an economic superpower, while detractors claim that his policies delayed economic development and that China’s economy only underwent its rapid growth after Mao’s policies had been widely abandoned. Mao’s revolutionary tactics continue to be used by insurgents, and his political ideology continues to be embraced by many communist organizations around the world.
In mainland China, Mao is still revered by many supporters of the Communist Party and respected by a majority of the general population as the "Founding Father of modern China", credited for giving "the Chinese people dignity and self-respect."[2] Mobo Gao in his 2008 book The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, credits Mao for raising the average life expectancy from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975, bringing "unity and stability to a country that had been plagued by civil wars and foreign invasions", and laying the foundation for China to "become the equal of the great global powers".[4] Gao also lauds Mao for carrying out massive land reform, promoting the status of women, improving popular literacy, and positively "transform(ing) Chinese society beyond recognition."[4]
However, Mao has many Chinese critics, both those who live inside and outside China. Opposition to Mao is subject to restriction in mainland China, but is especially strong elsewhere, where he is often reviled as a brutish ideologue. In the West, his name is generally associated with tyranny and his economic theories widely discredited – though to some political activists he remains a symbol against capitalism, imperialism and western influence. Even in China, key pillars of his economic theory have been largely dismantled by market reformers like Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang, who succeeded him as leaders of the Communist Party.
Though the Chinese Communist Party, which Mao led to power, has rejected in practice the economic fundamentals of much of Mao's ideology, it retains for itself many of the powers established under Mao's reign: it controls the Chinese army, police, courts and media and does not permit multi-party elections at the national or local level, except in Hong Kong. Thus it is difficult to gauge the true extent of support for the Chinese Communist Party and Mao's legacy within mainland China. For their part, the Chinese government continues to officially regard Mao as a national hero. In 2008, China opened the Mao Zedong Square to visitors in his hometown of central Hunan Province to mark the 115th anniversary of his birth.[81][82]
There continue to be disagreements on Mao's legacy. Former Party official Su Shachi, has opined that "he was a great historical criminal, but he was also a great force for good."[2] In a similar vein, journalist Liu Bin Yan has described Mao as "both monster and a genius."[2] Some historians claim that Mao Zedong was "one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century",[83] and a dictator comparable to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin,[83][84] with a death toll surpassing both.[8][9] In The Black Book of Communism, Jean Louis Margolin writes that "Mao Zedong was so powerful that he was often known as the Red Emperor... the violence he erected into a whole system far exceeds any national tradition of violence that we might find in China."[85] Mao was also frequently compared to China's First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, notorious for burying alive hundreds of scholars, and liked the comparison.[86] During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said he had far outdone Qin Shi Huang in his policy against intellectuals: "He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive.... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold."[87] As a result of such tactics, critics have pointed out that:
The People’s Republic of China under Mao exhibited the oppressive tendencies that were discernible in all the major absolutist regimes of the twentieth century. There are obvious parallels between Mao’s China, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Each of these regimes witnessed deliberately ordered mass 'cleansing' and extermination.[84]
Mao's English interpreter Sidney Rittenberg wrote in his memoir The Man Who Stayed Behind that 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."[88] Li Rui, Mao's personal secretary, goes further and claims he was dismissive of the suffering and death caused by his policies: "Mao's way of thinking and governing was terrifying. He put no value on human life. The deaths of others meant nothing to him."[89] Biographer Jung Chang goes further still and argues that Mao was well aware that his policies would be responsible for the deaths of millions. While discussing labor-intensive projects such as waterworks and making steel, Chang claims Mao said to his inner circle in November 1958: "Working like this, with all these projects, half of China may well have to die. If not half, one-third, or one-tenth – 50 million – die."[90] Thomas Bernstein of Columbia University argues that this quotation is taken out of context, claiming:
The Chinese original, however, is not quite as shocking. In the speech, Mao talks about massive earthmoving irrigation projects and numerous big industrial ones, all requiring huge numbers of people. If the projects, he said, are all undertaken simultaneously “half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million people.” Mao then pointed to the example of Guangxi provincial Party secretary, Chen Manyuan (陈漫远) who had been dismissed in 1957 for failing to prevent famine in the previous year, adding: “If with a death toll of 50 million you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; whether I should lose my head would also be in question. Anhui wants to do so much, which is quite all right, but make it a principle to have no deaths.”[91]
Chang and Halliday take literally Mao’s penchant for talking about mass death in highly irresponsible, provocative, callous and reckless ways, exemplified by his famous remark that in a nuclear war, half of China’s population would perish but the rest would survive and rebuild. In 1958, when ruminating about the dialectics of life and death, he thought that deaths were beneficial, for without them, there could be no renewal. Imagine, he asked, what a disaster it would be if Confucius were still alive. “When people die there ought to be celebrations.” In December 1958 he remarked that “destruction (miewang 灭亡, also to dying out) [of people] has advantages. One can make fertilizer. You say you can’t, but actually you can, but you must be spiritually prepared.” As the authors rightly note, these kinds of remarks could well have justified the indifference of lower-level cadres to peasant deaths."
Jasper Becker and Frank Dikötter reach a similar conclusion. Becker notes that "archive material gathered by Dikötter... confirms that far from being ignorant or misled about the famine, the Chinese leadership were kept informed about it all the time. And he exposes the extent of the violence used against the peasants":[92]
Mass killings are not usually associated with Mao and the Great Leap Forward, and China continues to benefit from a more favourable comparison with Cambodia or the Soviet Union. But as fresh and abundant archival evidence shows, coercion, terror and systematic violence were the foundation of the Great Leap, and between 1958 to 1962, by a rough approximation, some 6 to 8 per cent of those who died were tortured to death or summarily killed — amounting to at least 3 million victims. Countless others were deliberately deprived of food and starved to death. Many more vanished because they were too old, weak or sick to work — and hence unable to earn their keep. People were killed selectively because they had the wrong class background, because they dragged their feet, because they spoke out or simply because they were not liked, for whatever reason, by the man who wielded the ladle in the canteen.
Dikötter argues that CPC leaders "glorified violence and were inured to massive loss of life. And all of them shared an ideology in which the end justified the means. In 1962, having lost millions of people in his province, Li Jingquan compared the Great Leap Forward to the Long March in which only one in ten had made it to the end: 'We are not weak, we are stronger, we have kept the backbone.'"[93]
Regarding the large-scale irrigation projects, Dikötter stresses that, in spite of Mao being in a good position to see the human cost, they continued unabated for several years, and ultimately claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of exhausted villagers. He also notes that "In a chilling precursor of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, villagers in Qingshui and Gansu called these projects the 'killing fields'."[94]
The United States placed a trade embargo on the People's Republic as a result of its involvement in the Korean War, lasting until Richard Nixon decided that developing relations with the PRC would be useful in dealing with the Soviet Union.
Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one, especially in manners of guerrilla warfare, at which Mao is popularly regarded as a genius.[citation needed] As an example, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) followed Mao's examples of guerrilla warfare to considerable political and military success even in the 21st century.[citation needed] Mao's major contribution to the military science is his theory of People's War, with not only guerrilla warfare but more importantly, Mobile Warfare methodologies. Mao had successfully applied Mobile Warfare in the Korean War, and was able to encircle, push back and then halt the UN forces in Korea, despite the clear superiority of UN firepower.[citation needed] Mao also gave the impression that he might even welcome a nuclear war.[95] Soviet historians have written that Mao believed his country could survive a nuclear war, even if it lost 300 million people.[96]
"Let us imagine how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. If it is a little higher it could be half ... I say that if the worst came to the worst and one-half dies, there will still be one-half left, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. After a few years there would be 2.7 billion people again"[97]
But historians dispute the sincerity of Mao's words. Robert Service says that Mao "was deadly serious,"[98] while Frank Dikötter claims that "He was bluffing... the sabre-rattling was to show that he, not Khrushchev, was the more determined revolutionary."[97]
Mao's poems and writings are frequently cited by both Chinese and non-Chinese. The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech used a famous line from one of Mao's poems.[99] John McCain misattributed a campaign quote to Mao several times during his 2008 presidential election bid, saying "Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.'"
The ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists, mainly in the Third World, including revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge,[100][101] Peru's Shining Path, and the Nepalese revolutionary movement. Under the influence of Mao's agrarian socialism and Cultural Revolution, Cambodia's Pol Pot conceived of his disastrous Year Zero policies which purged the nation of its teachers, artists and intellectuals and emptied its cities, resulting in the Cambodian Genocide.[102]
The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA also claims Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideology, as do other Communist Parties around the world which are part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. China itself has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Maoism, in line with Mao's view of "Capitalist roaders" within the Communist Party.[citation needed]
As the Chinese government instituted free market economic reforms starting in the late 1970s and as later Chinese leaders took power, less recognition was given to the status of Mao. This accompanied a decline in state recognition of Mao in later years in contrast to previous years when the state organized numerous events and seminars commemorating Mao's 100th birthday. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of Mao. Deng Xiaoping, who was opposed to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, has to a certain extent rejected Mao's legacy, famously saying that Mao was "70% right and 30% wrong".
In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new renminbi currency from the People’s Republic of China. This was officially instituted as an anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency. On March 13, 2006, a story in the People's Daily reported that a proposal had been made to print the portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping.[103]
In 2006, the government in Shanghai issued a new set of high school history textbooks which omit Mao, with the exception of a single mention in a section on etiquette. Students in Shanghai now only learn about Mao in junior high school.[104]
Public image[link]
Mao gave contradicting statements on the subject of personality cults. In 1955, as a response to the Khrushchev Report that criticized Joseph Stalin, Mao stated that personality cults are "poisonous ideological survivals of the old society", and reaffirmed China's commitment to collective leadership.[105] But at the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for the personality cults of genuinely worthy figures; not those that expressed "blind worship".[106]
In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) in an attempt to educate the peasants to resist the "temptations" of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside from Liu's economic reforms[citation needed]. Large quantities of politicized art were produced and circulated — with Mao at the center. Numerous posters, badges and musical compositions referenced Mao in the phrase "Chairman Mao is the red sun in our hearts" (毛主席是我们心中的红太阳)[107] and a "Savior of the people" (人民的大救星).[107][108]
In October 1966, Mao's Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, which was known as the Little Red Book was published. Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for membership. Over the years, Mao's image became displayed almost everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops. His quotations were typographically emphasized by putting them in boldface or red type in even the most obscure writings. Music from the period emphasized Mao's stature, as did children's rhymes. The phrase "Long Live Chairman Mao for ten thousand years" was commonly heard during the era.[109]
Mao also has a presence in China and around the world in popular culture, where his face adorns everything from t-shirts to coffee cups. Mao's granddaughter, Kong Dongmei, defended the phenomenon, stating that "it shows his influence, that he exists in people's consciousness and has influenced several generations of Chinese people's way of life. Just like Che Guevara's image, his has become a symbol of revolutionary culture."[88] Since 1950, over 40 million people have visited Mao's birthplace in Shaoshan, Hunan.[110]
Genealogy[link]
Ancestors[link]
His ancestors were:
- Mao Yichang (毛贻昌, born Xiangtan October 15, 1870, died Shaoshan January 23, 1920), father, courtesy name Mao Shunsheng (毛顺生) or also known as Mao Jen-sheng
- Wen Qimei (文七妹, born Xiangxiang 1867, died October 5, 1919), mother. She was illiterate and a devout Buddhist. She was a descendant of Wen Tianxiang.
- Mao Empu (毛恩普, born May 22, 1846, died November 23, 1904), paternal grandfather
- Lady Luo (罗氏), paternal grandmother
- Mao Zuren (毛祖人), paternal great-grandfather
Wives[link]
Mao Zedong had several wives who contributed to a large family. These were:
- Luo Yixiu (罗一秀, October 20, 1889–1910) of Shaoshan: married 1907 to 1910
- Yang Kaihui (杨开慧, 1901–1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927, executed by the KMT in 1930; mother to Mao Anying, Mao Anqing, and Mao Anlong
- He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1910–1984) of Jiangxi: married May 1928 to 1939; mother to Mao Anhong, Li Min, and four other children
- Jiang Qing: (江青, 1914–1991), married 1939 to Mao's death; mother to Li Na
Siblings[link]
He had several siblings:
- Mao Zemin (毛泽民, 1895–1943), younger brother, executed by a warlord
- Mao Zetan (毛泽覃, 1905–1935), younger brother, executed by the KMT
- Mao Zejian (毛泽建, 1905–1929), adopted sister, executed by the KMT
- Mao Zedong's parents altogether had five sons and two daughters. Two of the sons and both daughters died young, leaving the three brothers Mao Zedong, Mao Zemin, and Mao Zetan. Like all three of Mao Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were communists. Like Yang Kaihui, both Zemin and Zetan were killed in warfare during Mao Zedong's lifetime.
Note that the character ze (泽) appears in all of the siblings' given names. This is a common Chinese naming convention.
From the next generation, Zemin's son, Mao Yuanxin, was raised by Mao Zedong's family. He became Mao Zedong's liaison with the Politburo in 1975. Sources like Li Zhisui (The Private Life of Chairman Mao) say that he played a role in the final power-struggles.[111]
Children[link]
Mao Zedong had a total of ten children,[112] including:
- Mao Anying (毛岸英, 1922–1950): son to Yang, married to Liu Siqi (刘思齐), who was born Liu Songlin (刘松林), killed in action during the Korean War
- Mao Anqing (毛岸青, 1923–2007): son to Yang, married to Shao Hua (邵华), grandson Mao Xinyu (毛新宇), great-grandson Mao Dongdong
- Mao Anlong (1927–1931): son to Yang, died during the Chinese Civil War
- Mao Anhong (b. 1932): son to He, left to Mao's younger brother Zetan and then to one of Zetan's guards when he went off to war, was never heard of again
- Li Min (李敏, b. 1936): daughter to He, married to Kong Linghua (孔令华), son Kong Ji'ning (孔继宁), daughter Kong Dongmei (孔冬梅)
- Li Na (李讷, Pinyin: Lĭ Nà, b. 1940): daughter to Jiang (whose birth given name was Li, a name also used by Mao while evading the KMT), married to Wang Jingqing (王景清), son Wang Xiaozhi (王效芝)
Mao's first and second daughters were left to local villagers because it was too dangerous to raise them while fighting the Kuomintang and later the Japanese. Their youngest daughter (born in early 1938 in Moscow after Mao separated) and one other child (born 1933) died in infancy. Two English researchers who retraced the entire Long March route in 2002–2003[113] located a woman whom they believe might well be one of the missing children abandoned by Mao to peasants in 1935. Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen hope a member of the Mao family will respond to requests for a DNA test.[114]
Personal life[link]
There are few academic sources discussing Mao's private life, which was very secretive at the time of his rule. However, after Mao's death, his personal physician Li Zhisui published a memoir of unique insight into Mao's private life: The Private Life of Chairman Mao, which claims that Mao chain-smoked cigarettes, never bathed or brushed his teeth, rarely got out of bed, was addicted to sleeping pills and had a large number of sexual partners from whom he contracted venereal disease.[115]
Having grown up in Hunan, Mao spoke Mandarin with a heavy Xiang Chinese accent that is very pronounced on recordings of his speeches.[citation needed]
Writings and calligraphy[link]
Mao was a prolific writer of political and philosophical literature.[116] He is the attributed author of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, known in the West as the "Little Red Book" and in Cultural Revolution China as the "Red Treasure Book" (红宝书): this is a collection of short extracts from his speeches and articles, edited by Lin Biao and ordered topically. Mao wrote several other philosophical treatises, both before and after he assumed power. These include:
- On Guerrilla Warfare (《游击战》); 1937
- On Practice (《实践论》); 1937
- On Contradiction (《矛盾论》); 1937
- On Protracted War (《论持久战》); 1938
- In Memory of Norman Bethune (《纪念白求恩》); 1939
- On New Democracy (《新民主主义论》); 1940
- Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art (《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》); 1942
- Serve the People (《为人民服务》); 1944
- The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (《愚公移山》); 1945
- On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People (《正确处理人民内部矛盾问题》); 1957
Mao was also a skilled Chinese calligrapher with a highly personal style. In China, Mao was considered a master calligrapher during his lifetime.[117] His calligraphy can be seen today throughout mainland China.[118] His work gave rise to a new form of Chinese calligraphy called "Mao-style" or Maoti, which has gained increasing popularity since his death. There currently exist various competitions specializing in Mao-style calligraphy.[119]
Literary works[link]
Main article: Poetry of Mao Zedong
As did most Chinese intellectuals of his generation, Mao received rigorous education in Chinese classical literature.[citation needed] His style was deeply influenced by the great Tang Dynasty poets Li Bai and Li He.[citation needed] He is considered to be a romantic poet, in contrast to the realist poets represented by Du Fu.[according to whom?]
Many of Mao's poems are still popular in China and a few are taught as a mandatory part of the elementary school curriculum.[citation needed] Some of his most well-known poems are: Changsha (1925), The Double Ninth (1929.10), Loushan Pass (1935), The Long March (1935), Snow (1936), The PLA Captures Nanjing (1949), Reply to Li Shuyi (1957.05.11), and Ode to the Plum Blossom (1961.12).[citation needed]
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ Mao: A Biography, by Ross Terrill, Stanford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8047-2921-2, p. 167-185
- ^ a b c d e Biography (TV series)—Mao Tse Tung: China's Peasant Emperor, A&E Network, 2005, ASIN B000AABKXG
- ^ a b c Mao Zedong article at Encyclopedia Britannica
- ^ a b c The battle for China's past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, by Mobo C. F. Gao, Pluto Press, 2008, ISBN 0-7453-2780-X, pg 81
- ^ a b The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, by Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 0-521-12433-6, pp. 327
- ^ Atlas of World History, by Patrick Karl O'Brien, Oxford University Press US, 2002, ISBN 0-19-521921-X, pp 254
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 630. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/books?visbn=0-8050-6638-1. "Mao had an extraordinary mix of talents: he was visionary, statesman, political and military strategist of cunning intellect, a philosopher and poet."
- ^ a b Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 631. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA631&dq=mao+a+life+all+the+dead+of+the+second+world+war. ; Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. ISBN 0-224-07126-2 p. 3; Rummel, R. J. China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 Transaction Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-88738-417-X p. 205: In light of recent evidence, Rummel has increased Mao's democide toll to 77 million; Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. PublicAffairs, 2009. ISBN 1-58648-769-8 p. 53: "...the Chinese communists' murdering of a mind-boggling number of people, perhaps between 50 million and 70 million Chinese, and an additional 1.2 million Tibetans."
- ^ a b Fenby, Jonathan. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present. Ecco, 2008. ISBN 0-06-166116-3 p. 351 "Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking."
- ^ "Mao Zedong". The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. http://www.oxfordreference.com/pages/samplep02. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ Time 100: Mao Zedong By Jonathan D. Spence, April 13, 1998.
- ^ Feigon, Lee (2002). Mao: A Reinterpretation. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. p. 17. ISBN 1-56663-522-5.
- ^ Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf, 2005 ISBN 0-679-42271-4), pp. 22-24, 15.
- ^ "毛泽东生平大事(1893–1976)". http://news.163.com/05/0908/11/1T4IGSAR00011246_2.html. (Major event chronology of Mao Zedong (1893–1976), People's Daily
- ^ a b "'Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan' Mao Zedong 1927". http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/sw1/mswv1_2.html.
- ^ Chunhou, Zhang. C (2002). Mao Zedong As Poet and Revolutionary Leader: Social and Historical Perspectives. ISBN 0-7391-0406-3. http://books.google.com/?id=EWtBMQgUGmEC.
- ^ "'Analysis of the classes in Chinese society' Mao Zedong 1927.". http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/sw1/mswv1_1.html.
- ^ Zedong, Mao. "On Practice". marxist.org. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_16.htm. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
- ^ Zedong, Mao. "On Contrdiction". marxist.org. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
- ^ "Mao Zedong on War and Revolution". Quotations from Mao Zedong on War and Revolution. Columbia University. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1900_mao_war.htm. Retrieved November 12, 2011.
- ^ "Che Guevara: Revolutionary & Icon", by Trisha Ziff, Abrams Image, 2006, pg 66
- ^ Lynch, Michael J (2004). Mao. ISBN 0-415-21577-3. http://books.google.com/?id=fzVSkyaBIGEC.
- ^ a b Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. pp. 272–274. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA272&dq=mao+a+life+ab-tuan+torture.
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 279. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA279&dq=mao+a+life+%27tens+of+thousands%27+died.
- ^ Jean-Luc Domenach. Chine: L'archipel oublié. (China: The Forgotten Archipelago.) Fayard, 1992. ISBN 2-213-02581-9 pg 47
- ^ ao Zedong, communismonline.com
- ^ Fairbank, John K; Albert Feuerwerker (1986). The Cambridge History of China (vol. 13, pt. 2). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-24338-6. http://books.google.com/?id=Fxs3ROaIhPMC.
- ^ Ying-kwong Wou, Odoric (1994). Mobilizing the Masses: Building Revolution in Henan. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2142-4. http://books.google.com/?id=1BN9dAqprX8C.
- ^ "Willy Lam: China's Own Historical Revisionism", History News Network, August 11, 2005. Retrieved May 15, 2006.
- ^ On Protracted War
- ^ "Crisis". Time. 13 November 1944. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801570-4,00.html.
- ^ Jacobs, Andrew (October 2, 2009). "China Is Wordless on Traumas of Communists’ Rise". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/asia/02anniversary.html. Retrieved October 2, 2009.
- ^ The phrase is often mistakenly said to have been delivered during the speech from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, but was first used on September 21, at the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, then repeated on several occasions. Timothy Cheek, ed., Mao Zedong and China's Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents (NY: Palgrave, 2002) p. 125. Also [1]
- ^ Burkitt, Laurie; Scobell, Andrew; Wortzel, Larry M. (July 2003). The lessons of history: The Chinese people's Liberation Army at 75. Strategic Studies Institute. pp. 340–341. ISBN 1-58487-126-1. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB52.pdf.
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. pp. 436–437. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=HQwoTtJ43_AC&pg=PA436&dq=Mao+landlords+and+members+of+their+families+killed.
- ^ a b Yang Kuisong. Reconsidering the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries The China Quarterly, 193, March 2008, pp.102–121. PDF file.
- ^ Steven W. Mosher. China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality. Basic Books, 1992. ISBN 0-465-09813-4 pp 72, 73
- ^ Stephen Rosskamm Shalom. Deaths in China Due to Communism. Center for Asian Studies Arizona State University, 1984. ISBN 0-939252-11-2 pg 24
- ^ Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. pg 337: "Mao claimed that the total number executed was 700,000 but this did not include those beaten or tortured to death in the post-1949 land reform, which would at the very least be as many again. Then there were suicides, which, based on several local inquiries, were very probably about equal to the number of those killed." Also cited in Mao Zedong, by Jonathan Spence, as cited [2]. Mao got this number from a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, which stated 712,000 counterrevolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and another 1,200,000 were "subjected to control.": Yang Kuisong. Reconsidering the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries The China Quarterly, 193, March 2008, pp.102–121. PDF file.
- ^ a b Twitchett, Denis; John K. Fairbank, Roderick MacFarquhar (June 26, 1987). The Cambridge history of China. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-24336-X. http://books.google.com/?id=ioppEjkCkeEC&pg=PA87&dq=at+least+one+landlord,+and+usually+several,+in+virtually+every+village+for+public+execution. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ Maurice Meisner. Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic, Third Edition. Free,Press, 1999. ISBN 0-684-85635-2 p. 72: "...the estimate of many relatively impartial observers that there were 2,000,000 people executed during the first three years of the People's Republic is probably as accurate a guess as one can make on the basis of scanty information."
- ^ Steven W. Mosher. China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality. Basic Books, 1992. ISBN 0-465-09813-4 pg 74: "...a figure that Fairbank has cited as the upper range of "sober" estimates."
- ^ Lee Feigon. Mao: A Reinterpretation. Ivan R. Dee, 2002. ISBN 1-56663-522-5 p. 96: "By 1952 they had extended land reform throughout the countryside, but in the process somewhere between two and five million landlords had been killed."
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 436. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=HQwoTtJ43_AC&pg=PA436&dq=%27%27At+least+a+million-and-a-half+more+disappeared+into+the+newly+established+%27reform+through+labour%27+camps,+purpose-built+to+accommodate+them.
- ^ a b Benjamin A. Valentino. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century Cornell University Press, 2004. pp. 121–122. ISBN 0-8014-3965-5
- ^ Changyu, Li. "Mao's "Killing Quotas." Human Rights in China (HRIC). September 26, 2005, at Shandong University" (PDF). http://hrichina.org/public/PDFs/CRF.4.2005/CRF-2005-4_Quota.pdf. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
- ^ Brown, Jeremy. "Terrible Honeymoon: Struggling with the Problem of Terror in Early 1950s China.". http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/jeremy50sessay.htm.
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 437. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA437&dq=mao+while+the+worst+among+them+should+be+shot.
- ^ "High Tide of Terror". Time Magazine. March 5, 1956. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,808241-5,00.html. Retrieved May 11, 2009.
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 631. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA631&dq=no+cadre+is+to+be+killed+kang+sheng.
- ^ Chang, Jung; Halliday, Jon. 2005. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf. 410.
- ^ Li, Zhisui (1994). The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician. pp. 198, 200, 468-469. Random House.. ISBN 0-7011-4018-6.
- ^ "China's great famine: 40 years later". British Medical Journal 1999;319:1619–1621 (December 18 )
- ^ Dikötter, Frank (15 December 15, 2010). "Mao's Great Leap to Famine". International Herald Tribune. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/opinion/16iht-eddikotter16.html.
- ^ Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, Key Arguments
- ^ a b Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks, 1998. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8 p. 81
- ^ Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks, 1998. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8 p. 86
- ^ Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks, 1998. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8 p. 93
- ^ Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? by Joseph Ball, Monthly Review, September 21, 2006
- ^ Benjamin A. Valentino. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century Cornell University Press, 2004. p. 128. ISBN 0-8014-3965-5
- ^ Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks, 1998. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8 p. 103
- ^ Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks, 1998. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8 pp. 92–93
- ^ Benjamin A. Valentino. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century Cornell University Press, 2004. p. 127. ISBN 0-8014-3965-5
- ^ a b Mark O'Neill. A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine. South China Morning Post, July 6, 2008.
- ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 761. ISBN 978-0-8050-6638-8. http://books.google.com/?id=4y6mACbLWGsC&pg=PA631&dq=mao+a+life+all+the+dead+of+the+second+world+war.
- ^ Akbar, Arifa (September 17, 2010). "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
- ^ Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. Walker & Company, 2010. p. 333. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
- ^ a b "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm". Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ a b c Chang, Jung and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (2006), pp. 568, 579.
- ^ Mao a Reinterpretation by Lee Feigon, page 140
- ^ For a full treatment of this idea see- Mobo Gao, "The Battle for China's Past", Pluto Press, London, 2008
- ^ Jonathan Mirsky. Livelihood Issues. Literary Review
- ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick; Schoenhals, Michael (2006). Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press. p. 110. ISBN 0-674-02332-3.
- ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. p. 125
- ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. p. 124
- ^ Ion Mihai Pacepa (November 28, 2006). "The Kremlin’s Killing Ways". National Review Online. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzY4NWU2ZjY3YWYxMDllNWQ5MjQ3ZGJmMzg3MmQyNjQ=. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ Daniel Chirot. Modern tyrants: the power and prevalence of evil in our age. Princeton University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-691-02777-3 p. 198
- ^ a b Mobo Gao, "The Battle for China's Past", Pluto Press, London, 2008; Lee Feigon "Mao a Reinterpretation" 2002
- ^ Holcombe, Charles (2010). A history of East Asia : from the origins of civilization to the twenty-first century. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. p. 322. ISBN 978-0-521-73164-5.
- ^ "China After Mao's Death: Nation of Rumor and Uncertainty". New York Times. October 6, 1976. "Hong Kong, October 5, 1976. With no word on the fate of the body of Mao Zedong, almost a month after his death, rumors are beginning to percolate in China, much as they did following the death of Prime Minister Chou En-lai..."
- ^ Chairman Mao square opened on his 115th birth anniversary
- ^ Mao Zedong still draws crowds on 113th birth anniversary http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200612/27/eng20061227_336033.html
- ^ a b MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-674-02332-3 p. 471: "Together with Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, Mao appears destined to go down in history as one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century."
- ^ a b Michael Lynch. Mao (Routledge Historical Biographies). Routledge, 2004. p. 230
- ^ Stéphane Courtois, Jean-Louis Margolin, et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 p. 465-466
- ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-674-02332-3 p. 428
- ^ Mao Zedong sixiang wan sui! (1969), p. 195. Referenced in Governing China: From Revolution to Reform (Second Edition) by Kenneth Lieberthal. W.W. Norton & Co., 2003. ISBN 0-393-92492-0 p. 71.
- ^ a b Granddaughter Keeps Mao's Memory Alive in Bookshop by Maxim Duncan, Reuters, September 28, 2009
- ^ Jonathan Watts. "China must confront dark past, says Mao confidant" The Guardian, June 2, 2005
- ^ Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. p 458 ISBN 0-224-07126-2 [Chang's source (p.725): *Mao CCRM, vol. 13, pp. 203–4 (E: MacFarquhar et al., pp. 494–5)].
- ^ Bernstein, Thomas III (Julu 2006). "Mao Zedong and the Famine of 1959–1960: A Study in Wilfulness". The China Quarterly 186: 421–445. DOI:10.1017/S0305741006000221.
- ^ Jasper Becker. Systematic genocide. The Spectator, September 25, 2010.
- ^ Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. Walker & Company, 2010. p. 299. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
- ^ Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. Walker & Company, 2010. p. 33. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
- ^ "Mao Tse-Tung: Father of Chinese Revolution". The New York Times. September 10, 1976
- ^ "Mao Reportedly Sought to A-Bomb U.S. Troops". Los Angeles Times. February 23, 1988.
- ^ a b Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. Walker & Company, 2010. p.13. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
- ^ Robert Service. Comrades!: A History of World Communism. Harvard University Press, 2007. p. 321. ISBN 0-674-02530-X
- ^ "奥巴马就职演说 引毛泽东诗词". People's Daily Online. January 22, 2009. http://chinapressusa.com/newscenter/2009-01/22/content_186098.htm. Retrieved July 15, 2009. [dead link]
- ^ Robert Jackson Alexander. International Maoism in the developing world. Praeger, 1999. p 200.
- ^ Jackson, Karl D (March 17, 1992). Cambodia, 1975–1978: Rendezvous with Death. Princeton University Press. p. 219. ISBN 0-691-02541-X. http://books.google.com/?id=h27D3EYGwzgC&pg=PA219&dq=Radical+Left-wing+Chinese+Communist+Underpinnings+of+Cambodian+Communism.
- ^ Biography of Pol Pot; A&E Television Network, 2003.
- ^ "Portraits of Sun Yat-sen, Deng Xiaoping proposed adding to RMB notes". People's Daily Online. March 13, 2006. http://english.people.com.cn/200603/13/eng20060313_250192.html. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ Kahn, Joseph (September 2, 2006). "Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/world/asia/01china.html?ex=1314763200&en=abf86c087b22be74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved February 28, 2007.
- ^ Meisner, Maurice (2007). Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait. Polity. p. 133.
- ^ "Cult of Mao". library.thinkquest.org. http://library.thinkquest.org/26469/cultural-revolution/cult.html. Retrieved August 23, 2008. "This remark of Mao seems to have elements of truth but it is false. He confuses the worship of truth with a personality cult, despite there being an essential difference between them. But this remark played a role in helping to promote the personality cult that gradually arose in the CCP."
- ^ a b Chapter 5: "Mao Badges – Visual Imagery and Inscriptions" in: Helen Wang: Chairman Mao badges: symbols and Slogans of the Cultural Revolution (British Museum Research Publication 169). The Trustees of the British Museum, 2008. ISBN 978-0-86159-169-5.
- ^ In "The East is Red" (东方红), an anthem that was popular during the Cultural Revolution. See lyrics and English translation at ChinaPoet.net or Sogou.net. Accessed August 24, 2009.
- ^ Lu, Xing (2004). Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: the impact on Chinese thought, Culture, and Communication. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 65. ISBN 1-57003-543-1. http://books.google.com/?id=GO5HrrJC_aMC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=Long+Live+Chairman+Mao+for+ten+thousand+years#v=onepage&q=Long%20Live%20Chairman%20Mao%20for%20ten%20thousand%20years&f=false.
- ^ 韶山升起永远不落的红太阳
- ^ Biographical Sketches in The Private Life of Chairman Mao
- ^ Jonathan Spence. Mao Zedong. Penguin Lives, 1999
- ^ "Stepping into history". China Daily. November 23, 2003. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-11/23/content_283948.htm. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ The Long March, by Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen. Constable 2006
- ^ Li, Zhisui (1994). The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician. Random House.. ISBN 0-7011-4018-6.
- ^ "Mao Zedong Thought - Part 1". http://chineseposters.net/themes/mao-thought.php. Retrieved April 30, 2011.
- ^ "100 years<!- Bot generated title ->". http://www.asiawind.com/art/callig/modern.htm#Contemporary%20Chinese%20Calligraphy. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
- ^ Yen, Yuehping (2005). Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society. Routledge. p. 2. http://books.google.com/books?visbn=0415317533.
- ^ "首届毛体书法邀请赛精品纷呈" (in Chinese). People.com. September 11, 2006. http://art.people.com.cn/GB/41132/41137/4802132.html.
Further reading[link]
- Becker, Jasper (1998). Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks. ISBN 0-8050-5668-8.
- Chang, Jung; Halliday, Jon (2005). Mao: The Unknown Story. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-42271-4.
- Cheek, Timothy, ed. Mao Zedong and China's Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture. NY: Palgrave, 2002).
- Cheek, Timothy, ed.A Critical Introduction to Mao (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-521-88462-4).
- Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. Walker & Company, 2010. ISBN 0-8027-7768-6
- Feigon, Lee (2003). Mao: A Reinterpretation. Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. ISBN 1-56663-522-5.
- Li, Zhisui (1996). The Private Life of Chairman Mao. Random House. ISBN 0-679-76443-7.
- MacFarquhar, Roderick; Schoenhals, Michael (2006). Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-02332-3.
- Mobo, Gao (2008). The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-2780-X.
- Schram, Stuart R. (1967). Mao Tse-Tung. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-020840-2.
- Schwartz, Benjamin Isadore (1951). Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-12251-8.
- Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 761. ISBN 0-8050-6638-1. http://books.google.com/?id=HQwoTtJ43_AC&dq=mao+a+life.
- Spence, Jonathan D. (1999). Mao Zedong. Viking. ISBN 0-670-88669-6.
- Terrill, Ross (1980). Mao: A Biography. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2921-2.
- Chinese Writers on Writing featuring Mao Zedong. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010).
Annotated writings[link]
- Serve the People, mouseover annotated version of Mao's 1944 speech
- Remembering Norman Bethune mouseover annotated version of Mao's 1935 eulogy for the famous Canadian doctor
External links[link]
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- General
- Asia Source biography
- ChineseMao.com: Extensive resources about Mao Zedong
- CNN profile
- Collected Works of Mao at the Maoist Internationalist Movement
- Mao quotations
- Mao Zedong Reference Archive at marxists.org
- Oxford Companion to World Politics: Mao Zedong
- Spartacus Educational biography
- Bio of Mao at the official Communist Party of China web site
- Commentary
- Discusses the life, military influence and writings of Chairman Mao ZeDong.
- What Maoism Has Contributed
- China must confront dark past, says Mao confidant
- Mao was cruel – but also laid the ground for today's China
- On the Role of Mao Zedong
- Propaganda paintings showing Mao as the great leader of China
- Remembering Mao's Victims
- Mao Tse Tung: Leader, Killer, Icon
- Mao's Great Leap to Famine
- Finding the Facts About Mao’s Victims
- Remembering China's Great Helmsman
- Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?
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| Persondata | |
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| Name | Zedong, Mao |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | 毛泽东; 毛泽东; Máo Zédōng; Mao Tse-tung |
| Date of birth | December 26, 1893 |
| Place of birth | Hunan, China |
| Date of death | September 9, 1976 |
| Place of death | Beijing, China |
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This article is about the second president of the United States. For his son, the 6th president of the United States, see John Quincy Adams. For other uses, see John Adams (disambiguation).
| John Adams | |
|---|---|
,_2nd_president_of_the_United_States,_by_Asher_B._Durand_(1767-1845)-crop.jpg) |
|
| 2nd President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801 |
|
| Vice President | Thomas Jefferson |
| Preceded by | George Washington |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Jefferson |
| 1st Vice President of the United States | |
| In office April 21, 1789* – March 4, 1797 |
|
| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Jefferson |
| United States Minister to Great Britain | |
| In office April 1, 1785 – March 30, 1788 |
|
| Appointed by | Congress of the Confederation |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Pinckney |
| United States Minister to the Netherlands | |
| In office April 19, 1782 – March 30, 1788 |
|
| Appointed by | Congress of the Confederation |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | William Short |
| Delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Massachusetts |
|
| In office May 10, 1775 – June 27, 1778 |
|
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Samuel Holten |
| Delegate to the First Continental Congress from Massachusetts Bay |
|
| In office September 5, 1774 – October 26, 1774 |
|
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1735-10-30)October 30, 1735 Braintree, Massachusetts (now Quincy) |
| Died | July 4, 1826(1826-07-04) (aged 90) Quincy, Massachusetts |
| Political party | Federalist |
| Spouse(s) | Abigail Smith |
| Children | Nabby John Quincy Susanna Charles Thomas Elizabeth (Stillborn) |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Unitarianism (previously Congregationalist) [1] |
| Signature |  |
| *Adams' term as Vice President is sometimes listed as starting on either March 4 or April 6. March 4 is the official start of the first vice presidential term. April 6 is the date on which Congress counted the electoral votes and certified a Vice President. April 21 is the date on which Adams began presiding over the Senate. | |
John Adams (October 30, 1735 (O.S. October 19, 1735) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, and the second President of the United States (1797–1801).[2] He was also a lawyer, statesman, diplomat, political theorist, and a leading champion of independence in 1776. Hailing from New England, Adams, a prominent lawyer and public figure in Boston, was highly educated and represented Enlightenment values promoting republicanism. A Federalist, he was highly influential and one of the key Founding Fathers of the United States.
Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence and assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence. As a diplomat in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780 which soon after ended slavery in Massachusetts, but was in Europe when the federal Constitution was drafted on similar principles later in the decade. One of his greatest roles was as a judge of character: in 1775, he nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief, and 25 years later nominated John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the United States.
Adams' revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington's vice president and his own election in 1796 as the second president. During his one term, he encountered ferocious attacks by the Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the dominant faction in his own Federalist Party led by his bitter enemy Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the army and navy especially in the face of an undeclared naval war (called the "Quasi-War") with France, 1798–1800. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the conflict in the face of Hamilton's opposition.
In 1800 Adams was defeated for re-election by Thomas Jefferson and retired to Massachusetts. He later resumed his friendship with Jefferson. He and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded an accomplished family line of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family. Adams was the father of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. His achievements have received greater recognition in modern times, though his contributions were not initially as celebrated as those of other Founders.
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Early life[link]
John Adams, Jr., the eldest of three sons,[3] was born on October 30, 1735 (October 19, 1735 Old Style, Julian calendar), in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts (then called the "north precinct" of Braintree, Massachusetts), to John Adams, Sr., and Susanna Boylston Adams.[4] While he did not speak much of his mother later in life, he commonly praised his father and was very close to him as a child. Adams' birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park. His father, also named John (1691–1761), was a fifth-generation descendant of Henry Adams, who emigrated from Somerset[5] in England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1638. John Adams, Sr. was a farmer, a Congregationalist (that is, Puritan) deacon, a lieutenant in the militia and a selectman, or town councilman, who supervised schools and roads; Susanna Boylston Adams was a descendant of the Boylstons of Brookline.[6]
Adams was born to a modest family, but he felt acutely the responsibility of living up to his family heritage: the founding generation of Puritans, who came to the American wilderness in the 1630s and established colonial presence in America. The Puritans of the great migration "believed they lived in the Bible. England under the Stuarts was Egypt; they were Israel fleeing ... to establish a refuge for godliness, a city upon a hill."[7] By the time of John Adams's birth in 1735, Puritan tenets such as predestination were no longer as widely accepted, and many of their stricter practices had mellowed with time, but John Adams "considered them bearers of freedom, a cause that still had a holy urgency." It was a value system he believed in, and a heroic model he wished to live up to.[7]
Young Adams went to Harvard College at age sixteen in 1751.[8] His father expected him to become a minister, but Adams had doubts. After graduating in 1755 with an A.B., he taught school for a few years in Worcester, allowing himself time to think about his career choice. After much reflection, he decided to become a lawyer, writing his father that he found among lawyers “noble and gallant achievements" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces." He later became a Unitarian, and dropped belief in predestination, eternal damnation, and most other Calvinist beliefs of his Puritan ancestors. Adams then studied law in the office of John Putnam, a prominent lawyer in Worcester.
In 1758, after earning an A.M. from Harvard,[9] Adams was admitted to the bar. From an early age, he developed the habit of writing descriptions of events and impressions of men which are scattered through his diary. He put the skill to good use as a lawyer, often recording cases he observed so that he could study and reflect upon them. His report of the 1761 argument of James Otis in the superior court of Massachusetts as to the legality of Writs of Assistance is a good example. Otis's argument inspired Adams with zeal for the cause of the American colonies.[10]
On October 25, 1764, five days before his 29th birthday, Adams married Abigail Smith (1744–1818), his third cousin[11] and the daughter of a Congregational minister, Rev. William Smith, at Weymouth, Massachusetts. Their children were Abigail (1765–1813); future president John Quincy (1767–1848); Susanna (1768–1770); Charles (1770–1800); Thomas Boylston (1772–1832); and the Elizabeth (1777).[12]
Adams was not a popular leader like his second cousin, Samuel Adams. Instead, his influence emerged through his work as a constitutional lawyer and his intense analysis of historical examples,[13] together with his thorough knowledge of the law and his dedication to the principles of republicanism. Adams often found his inborn contentiousness to be a constraint in his political career.
Career before the Revolution[link]
Opponent of Stamp Act 1765[link]
Adams first rose to prominence as an opponent of the Stamp Act 1765, which was imposed by the British Parliament without consulting the American legislatures. Americans protested vehemently that it violated their traditional rights as Englishmen. Popular resistance, he later observed, was sparked by an oft-reprinted sermon of the Boston minister, Jonathan Mayhew, interpreting Romans 13 to elucidate the principle of just insurrection.[14]
In 1765, Adams drafted the instructions which were sent by the inhabitants of Braintree to its representatives in the Massachusetts legislature, and which served as a model for other towns to draw up instructions to their representatives. In August 1765, he anonymously contributed four notable articles to the Boston Gazette (republished in The London Chronicle in 1768 as True Sentiments of America, also known as A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law). In the letter he suggested that there was a connection between the Protestant ideas that Adams's Puritan ancestors brought to New England and the ideas behind their resistance to the Stamp Act. In the former he explained that the opposition of the colonies to the Stamp Act was because the Stamp Act deprived the American colonists of two basic rights guaranteed to all Englishmen, and which all free men deserved: rights to be taxed only by consent and to be tried only by a jury of one's peers.
The "Braintree Instructions" were a succinct and forthright defense of colonial rights and liberties, while the Dissertation was an essay in political education.
In December 1765, he delivered a speech before the governor and council in which he pronounced the Stamp Act invalid on the ground that Massachusetts, being without representation in Parliament, had not assented to it.[15]
Boston Massacre[link]
In 1770, a street confrontation resulted in British soldiers killing five civilians in what became known as the Boston Massacre.[16] The soldiers involved were arrested on criminal charges. Not surprisingly, they had trouble finding legal counsel to represent them. Finally, they asked Adams to defend. He accepted, though he feared it would hurt his reputation. In their defense, Adams made his now famous quote regarding making decisions based on the evidence: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."[17] Six of the soldiers were acquitted. Two who had fired directly into the crowd were charged with murder but were convicted only of manslaughter. Adams was paid eighteen guineas by the British soldiers, or about the cost of a pair of shoes.[18]
Despite his previous misgivings, Adams was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (the colonial legislature) in June 1770, while still in preparation for the trial.[19]
Dispute concerning Parliament's authority[link]
In 1772, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson announced that he and his judges would no longer need their salaries paid by the Massachusetts legislature, because the Crown would henceforth assume payment drawn from customs revenues. Boston radicals protested and asked Adams to explain their objections. In "Two Replies of the Massachusetts House of Representatives to Governor Hutchinson" Adams argued that the colonists had never been under the sovereignty of Parliament. Their original charter was with the person of the king and their allegiance was only to him. If a workable line could not be drawn between parliamentary sovereignty and the total independence of the colonies, he continued, the colonies would have no other choice but to choose independence.
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
In Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America, From Its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time Adams attacked some essays by Daniel Leonard that defended Hutchinson's arguments for the absolute authority of Parliament over the colonies. In Novanglus Adams gave a point-by-point refutation of Leonard's essays, and then provided one of the most extensive and learned arguments made by the colonists against British imperial policy.
It was a systematic attempt by Adams to describe the origins, nature, and jurisdiction of the unwritten British constitution. Adams used his wide knowledge of English and colonial legal history to argue that the provincial legislatures were fully sovereign over their own internal affairs, and that the colonies were connected to Great Britain only through the King.
Continental Congress[link]
Massachusetts sent Adams to the first and second Continental Congresses in 1774 and from 1775 to 1777.[20] In June 1775, with a view of promoting union among the colonies, he nominated George Washington of Virginia as commander-in-chief of the army then assembled around Boston. His influence in Congress was great, and almost from the beginning, he sought permanent separation from Britain.
Over the next decade, Americans from every state gathered and deliberated on new governing documents. As radical as it was to write constitutions (prior tradition suggested that a society's form of government need not be codified, nor its organic law written down in a single document), what was equally radical was the revolutionary nature of American political thought as the summer of 1776 dawned.[21]
Declaration of Independence[link]
In May 1776 Adams persuaded congress to approve his resolution calling on the colonies to adopt new (presumably independent) governments.[22] He then assembled a preamble to this resolution which elaborated on it, and which congress approved on May 15. These two resolutions were, as Adams put it, "independence itself"[23] and set the stage for the formal passage of the Declaration of Independence. Once the initial resolution and preamble passed in May, independence became inevitable, though had to be declared formally. On June 7, 1776, Adams seconded the resolution of independence introduced by Richard Henry Lee which stated, "These colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states," and championed the resolution until it was adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776.[24]
He was appointed to a committee with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman, to draft the Declaration of Independence, which was to be ready when congress voted on independence. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded—accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable.[25] What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.[26] The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with Jefferson personally.[27] Although the first draft was written primarily by Jefferson, Adams continued to occupy the foremost place in the debate on its adoption. After editing the document further, congress approved it on July 4. Many years later, Jefferson hailed Adams as "the pillar of [the Declaration's] support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered."[28]
After the defeat of the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, Admiral Lord Richard Howe requested the Second Continental Congress send representatives in an attempt to negotiate peace. A delegation including Adams and Benjamin Franklin met with Howe on Staten Island on September 11.[29] Both Howe's authority and that of the delegation were limited, and they were unable to find common ground.[30] When Lord Howe unhappily stated he could only view the American delegates as British subjects, Adams replied, "Your lordship may consider me in what light you please, [...] except that of a British subject."[31] Lord Howe then addressed the other delegates, stating, "Mr. Adams appears to be a decided character." Adams learned many years later that his name was on a list of people specifically excluded from Howe's pardon-granting authority.[32] In 1777, Adams began serving as the head of the Board of War and Ordnance, as well as serving on many other important committees.
Thoughts on Government[link]
Several representatives turned to Adams for advice about framing new governments. Adams got tired of repeating the same thing, and published the pamphlet "Thoughts on Government" (1776),[33] which was subsequently influential in the writing of state constitutions.[34] Using the conceptual framework of Republicanism in the United States, the patriots believed it was the corrupt and nefarious aristocrats, in the British Parliament, and their minions stationed in America, who were guilty of the British assault on American liberty.[35]
Adams advised that the form of government should be chosen to attain the desired ends, which are the happiness and virtue of the greatest number of people. With this goal in mind, he wrote in "Thoughts on Government",
There is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; because the very definition of a republic is an empire of laws, and not of men.
The treatise also defended bicameralism, for "a single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual."[36] He also suggested that there should be a separation of powers between the executive, the judicial, and the legislative branches, and further recommended that if a continental government were to be formed then it "should sacredly be confined" to certain enumerated powers. "Thoughts on Government" was enormously influential and was referenced as an authority in every state-constitution writing hall.
In Europe[link]
Congress twice dispatched Adams to represent the fledgling union in Europe, first in 1777, and again in 1779. Accompanied, on both occasions, by his eldest son, John Quincy (who was ten years old at the time of the first voyage), Adams sailed for France aboard the Continental Navy frigate Boston on February 15, 1778. The trip through winter storms was treacherous, with lightning injuring 19 sailors and killing one. Adams' ship was then pursued by but successfully evaded several British frigates in the mid-Atlantic. Toward the coast of Spain, Adams himself took up arms to help capture a heavily armed British merchantman ship, the Martha. Later, a cannon malfunction killed one and injured five more of Adams' crew before the ship finally arrived in France.[37]
Adams was in some regards an unlikely choice inasmuch as he did not speak French, the international language of diplomacy at the time.[38] His first stay in Europe, between April 1, 1778, and June 17, 1779, was largely unproductive, and he returned to his home in Braintree in early August 1779.
Between September 1 and October 30, 1779, he drafted the Massachusetts Constitution together with Samuel Adams and James Bowdoin. He was selected in September 1779 to return to France and, following the conclusion of the Massachusetts constitutional convention, left on November 14[39] aboard the French frigate Sensible.
On the second trip, Adams was appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary charged with the mission of negotiating a treaty of amity and commerce with Britain. The French government, however, did not approve of Adams's appointment and subsequently, on the insistence of the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Henry Laurens were appointed to cooperate with Adams, although Jefferson did not go to Europe and Laurens was posted to the Dutch Republic. In the event Jay, Adams, and Franklin played the major part in the negotiations. Overruling Franklin and distrustful of Vergennes, Jay and Adams decided not to consult with France. Instead, they dealt directly with the British commissioners.[40]
Throughout the negotiations, Adams was especially determined that the right of the United States to the fisheries along the Atlantic coast should be recognized. The American negotiators were able to secure a favorable treaty, which gave Americans ownership of all lands east of the Mississippi, except East and West Florida, which were transferred to Spain. The treaty was signed on November 30, 1782.
After these negotiations began, Adams had spent some time as the ambassador in the Dutch Republic, then one of the few other Republics in the world (the Republic of Venice and the Old Swiss Confederacy being the other notable ones). In July 1780, he had been authorized to execute the duties previously assigned to Laurens. With the aid of the Dutch Patriot leader Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, Adams secured the recognition of the United States as an independent government at The Hague on April 19, 1782.[41] During this visit, he also negotiated a loan of five million guilders financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink.[42] In October 1782, he negotiated with the Dutch a treaty of amity and commerce, the first such treaty between the United States and a foreign power following the 1778 treaty with France. The house that Adams bought during this stay in The Netherlands became the first American-owned embassy on foreign soil anywhere in the world.[43] For two months during 1783, Adams lodged in London with radical publisher John Stockdale.[44]
In 1784 and 1785, he was one of the architects of far-going trade relations between the United States and Prussia. The Prussian ambassador in The Hague, Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeyer, was involved, as were Jefferson and Franklin, who were in Paris.[45]
In 1785, John Adams was appointed the first American minister to the Court of St. James's (ambassador to Great Britain). In his diary he mentions an exchange between himself and another ambassador who asked if he had often been in England and if he had English relations to which Adams explained he had only been to England once for a two month visit back in 1783 and that he had no relations in the country. The ambassador asked "None, how can that be? you are of English extraction?" to which Adams relied "Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American".[46]
When he was presented to his former sovereign, George III, the King intimated that he was aware of Adams's lack of confidence in the French government. Adams admitted this, stating: "I must avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to my own country."
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom referred to this episode on July 7, 1976, at the White House. She said:
John Adams, America's first Ambassador, said to my ancestor, King George III, that it was his desire to help with the restoration of 'the old good nature and the old good humor between our peoples.' That restoration has long been made, and the links of language, tradition, and personal contact have maintained it.[47]
While in London, John and Abigail had to suffer the stares and hostility of the Court, and chose to escape it when they could by seeking out Richard Price, minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church and instigator of the Revolution Controversy. Both admired Price very much, and Abigail took to heart the teachings of the man and his protegee Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.[48]
Adams's home in England, a house off London's Grosvenor Square, still stands and is commemorated by a plaque. He returned to the United States in 1788 to continue his domestic political life.
Constitutional ideas[link]
Massachusetts's new constitution, ratified in 1780 and written largely by Adams himself, structured its government most closely on his views of politics and society.[49] It was the first constitution written by a special committee and ratified by the people. It was also the first to feature a bicameral legislature, a clear and distinct executive with a partial (two-thirds) veto (although he was restrained by an executive council), and a distinct judicial branch.
"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."
– John Adams, September 10, 1785[50]
While in London, Adams published a work entitled A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States (1787).[51] In it he repudiated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the viciousness of the framework of state governments. Turgot argued that countries that lacked aristocracies needn't have bicameral legislatures. He thought that republican governments feature "all authorities into one center, that of the nation."[52] In the book, Adams suggested that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate—that would prevent them from dominating the lower house. Wood (2006) has maintained that Adams had become intellectually irrelevant by the time the Federal Constitution was ratified. By then, American political thought, transformed by more than a decade of vigorous and searching debate as well as shaping experiential pressures, had abandoned the classical conception of politics which understood government as a mirror of social estates. Americans' new conception of popular sovereignty now saw the people-at-large as the sole possessors of power in the realm. All agents of the government enjoyed mere portions of the people's power and only for a limited time. Adams had completely missed this concept and revealed his continued attachment to the older version of politics.[53] Yet Wood overlooks Adams's peculiar definition of the term "republic," and his support for a constitution ratified by the people.[54] He also underplays Adams's belief in checks and balances. "Power must be opposed to power, and interest to interest," Adams wrote; this sentiment would later be echoed by James Madison's famous statement that "[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition" in The Federalist No. 51, in explaining the powers of the branches of the United States federal government under the new Constitution.[55][56] Adams did as much as anyone to put the idea of "checks and balances" on the intellectual map.
Adams's Defence can be read as an articulation of the classical republican theory of mixed government. Adams contended that social classes exist in every political society, and that a good government must accept that reality. For centuries, dating back to Aristotle, a mixed regime balancing monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy—that is, the king, the nobles, and the people—was required to preserve order and liberty.[57]
Adams never bought a slave and declined on principle to employ slave labor.[58] Abigail Adams opposed slavery and employed free blacks in preference to her father's two domestic slaves. John Adams spoke out in 1777 against a bill to emancipate slaves in Massachusetts, saying that the issue was presently too divisive, and so the legislation should "sleep for a time."[59] He also was against use of black soldiers in the Revolution, due to opposition from southerners.[59] Adams generally tried to keep the issue out of national politics, because of the anticipated southern response.[59][60] Though it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date on which slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, a common view is that it was abolished no later than 1780, when it was forbidden by implication in the Declaration of Rights that John Adams wrote into the Massachusetts Constitution.[61]
Vice Presidency[link]
While Washington won the presidential election of 1789 with 69 votes in the electoral college, Adams came in second with 34 votes and became Vice President. According to David McCullough, what he really might have wanted was to be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He presided over the Senate but otherwise played a minor role in the politics of the early 1790s; he was reelected in 1792. Washington seldom asked Adams for input on policy and legal issues during his tenure as vice president.[62]
In the first year of Washington's administration, Adams became deeply involved in a month-long Senate controversy over the official title of the President. Adams favored grandiose titles such as "His Majesty the President" or "His High Mightiness" over the simple "President of the United States" that eventually won the debate. The pomposity of his stance, along with his being overweight, led to Adams earning the nickname "His Rotundity."
As president of the Senate, Adams cast 29 tie-breaking votes—a record that only John C. Calhoun came close to tying, with 28.[63] His votes protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees and influenced the location of the national capital. On at least one occasion, he persuaded senators to vote against legislation that he opposed, and he frequently lectured the Senate on procedural and policy matters. Adams's political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of the Washington administration. Toward the end of his first term, as a result of a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters, he began to exercise more restraint. When the two political parties formed, he joined the Federalist Party, but never got on well with its dominant leader Alexander Hamilton. Because of Adams's seniority and the need for a northern president, he was elected as the Federalist nominee for president in 1796, over Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party. His success was due to peace and prosperity; Washington and Hamilton had averted war with Britain with the Jay Treaty of 1795.[64]
Adams's two terms as Vice President were frustrating experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect, and vanity. He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."[65]
Election of 1796[link]
Main article: United States presidential election, 1796
The 1796 election was the first contested election under the First Party System. Adams was the presidential candidate of the Federalist Party and Thomas Pinckney, the Governor of South Carolina, was also running as a Federalist (at this point, the vice president was whoever came in second, so no running mates existed in the modern sense). The Federalists wanted Adams as their presidential candidate to crush Thomas Jefferson's bid. Most Federalists would have preferred Hamilton to be a candidate. Although Hamilton and his followers supported Adams, they also held a grudge against him. They did consider him to be the lesser of the two evils. However, they thought Adams lacked the seriousness and popularity that had caused Washington to be successful and feared that Adams was too vain, opinionated, unpredictable, and stubborn to follow their directions.[66]
Adams's opponents were former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who was joined by Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic-Republican ticket.
As was customary, Adams stayed in his home town of Quincy rather than actively campaign for the Presidency. He wanted to stay out of what he called the silly and wicked game. His party, however, campaigned for him, while the Democratic-Republicans campaigned for Jefferson.
It was expected that Adams would dominate the votes in New England, while Jefferson was expected to win in the Southern states. In the end, Adams won the election by a narrow margin of 71 electoral votes to 68 for Jefferson (who became the vice president).[67]
Presidency: 1797–1801[link]
See also: 1797 State of the Union Address
As President, Adams followed Washington's lead in making the presidency the example of republican values, and stressing civic virtue; he was never implicated in any scandal. Adams continued not just the Washington cabinet but all the major programs of the Washington Administration as well. Adams continued to strengthen the central government, in particular by expanding the navy and army. His economic programs were a continuation of those of Hamilton, who regularly consulted with key cabinet members, especially the powerful Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr.[68] Historians debate his decision to keep the Washington cabinet. Though they were very close to Hamilton, their retention ensured a smoother succession.[69] He remained quite independent of his cabinet throughout his term, often making decisions despite strong opposition from it. It was out of this management style that he avoided war with France, despite a strong desire among his cabinet secretaries for war. The Quasi-War with France resulted in the disentanglement with European affairs that Washington had sought. It also, like other conflicts, had enormous psychological benefits, as America saw itself as holding its own against a European power.
Historian George Herring argues that Adams was the most independent-minded of all the founders.[70] Though he aligned with the Federalists, he was more his own party, disagreeing with the Federalists almost as much as he did the Democratic-Republican opposition.[71] Though often described as "prickly", his independence meant that he had a talent for making good decisions in the face of almost universal hostility.[70] Indeed, it was Adams' decision to push for peace with France, rather than to continue hostilities, that hurt his popularity.[72] Though this decision played an important role in his reelection defeat, he was ultimately thrilled with that decision, so much so that he had it engraved on his tombstone.[73] Adams spent much of his term at his home in Massachusetts, ignoring the details of political patronage that were not ignored by others. Adams' combative spirit did not always lend itself to presidential decorum, as Adams himself admitted in his old age: "[As president] I refused to suffer in silence. I sighed, sobbed, and groaned, and sometimes screeched and screamed. And I must confess to my shame and sorrow that I sometimes swore."[74]
Quasi-War and peace with France[link]
Adams' term was marked by intense disputes over foreign policy, in particular a desire to stay out of the expanding conflict in Europe. Britain and France were at war; Hamilton and the Federalists favored Britain, while Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans favored France.[75] The French wanted Jefferson to be elected president, and when he wasn't, they became even more belligerent.[76] When Adams entered office, he realized that he needed to continue Washington's policy of staying out of the European war. Indeed, the intense battle over the Jay Treaty in 1795 permanently polarized politics up and down the nation, marking the start of the First Party System.[77] The French saw America as Britain's junior partner and began seizing American merchant ships that were trading with the British. Americans remained pro-French, due to France's assistance during the Revolutionary War. Because of this, Americans wouldn't rally behind Adams, nor anyone else, to stop France.[78]
That problem ended with the XYZ Affair, in which the French demanded huge bribes before any discussions could begin. Before this event, Americans mostly supported France, but after the event, most opposed France. The Jeffersonians, who were friends to France, were embarrassed and quickly became the minority as Americans began to demand full scale war. Adams and his advisers knew that America would be unable to win such a conflict, as France at the time was successfully fighting much of Europe. Instead, Adams pursued a strategy whereby American ships would harass French ships in an effort to stop the French assaults on American interests. This was the undeclared naval war between the U.S. and France, called the Quasi-War, which broke out in 1798. There was danger of invasion from the much larger and more powerful French forces, so Adams and the Federalist congress built up the army, bringing back Washington at its head. Washington wanted Hamilton to be his second-in-command and, given Washington's fame, Adams reluctantly gave in.[79] Given Washington's age, as everyone knew, Hamilton was truly in charge. Adams rebuilt the Navy, adding six fast, powerful frigates, most notably the USS Constitution. To pay for the new Army and Navy, Congress imposed new taxes on property: the Direct Tax of 1798.[80] It was the first (and last) such federal tax. Taxpayers were angry, nowhere more so than in southeast Pennsylvania, where the bloodless Fries's Rebellion broke out among rural German-speaking farmers who protested what they saw as a threat to their republican liberties and to their churches.[81]
Hamilton assumed a high degree of control over the War department, and the rift between Adams and Hamilton's supporters grew wider. They acted as though Hamilton were president by demanding that he control the army. They also refused to recognize the necessity of giving prominent Democratic-Republicans positions in the army, which Adams wanted to do in order to gain Democratic-Republican support. By building a large standing army, Hamilton's supporters raised popular alarms and played into the hands of the Democratic-Republicans. They also alienated Adams and his large personal following. They shortsightedly viewed the Federalist party as their own tool and ignored the need to pull together the entire nation in the face of war with France.[82] Overall, however, due to patriotism and a series of naval victories, the war remained popular and Adams' popularity remained high.
Adams knew victory in an all out war against imperial France would be impossible, so despite the threats to his popularity, he sought peace. In February 1799, he stunned the country by sending diplomat William Vans Murray on a peace mission to France. Napoleon, realizing that the conflict was pointless, signaled his readiness for friendly relations. At the Convention of 1800 the Treaty of Alliance of 1778 was superseded and the United States could now be free of foreign entanglements, as Washington advised in his farewell address. He brought in John Marshall as Secretary of State and demobilized the emergency army.[83] Adams avoided war, but deeply split his own party in the process. As he suspected would happen, peace hurt his popularity. Nevertheless, Adams was extremely proud of having kept the nation out of war; later in life he even asked that his tombstone read "Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of Peace with France in the year 1800."[84]
Alien and Sedition Acts[link]
Main article: Alien and Sedition Acts
Though the Democratic-Republicans were discredited by the XYZ Affair, their opposition to the Federalists remained high. In an environment of war, and with recent memories of the reign of terror during the French Revolution, nerves remained explosive. Democratic-Republicans had supported France, and some even seemed to want an event similar to the French Revolution to come to America to overthrow the Federalists.[85] When Democratic-Republicans in some states refused to enforce federal laws, and even threatened possible rebellion, some Federalists threatened to send in an army and force them to capitulate.[86] As the paranoia sweeping Europe was bleeding over into America, calls for secession reached unparalleled heights, and America seemed ready to rip itself apart.[86] Some of this was seen by Federalists as having been caused by French and French-sympathizing immigrants. Federalists in Congress therefore passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed by Adams in 1798.[87][88]
There were four separate acts, the Naturalization Act, the Alien Act, the Alien Enemies Act, and the Sedition Act. These four acts were passed to cool down the opposition by stopping their most extreme firebrands. The Naturalization Act changed the period of residence required before an immigrant could attain American citizenship to 14 years (naturalized citizens tended to vote for the Democratic-Republicans). The Alien Friends Act and the Alien Enemies Act allowed the president to deport any foreigner he thought dangerous to the country. The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials. Punishments included 2–5 years in prison and fines of up to $5,000. Although Adams had not originated or promoted any of these acts, he nevertheless signed them into law.
Those acts, and the high-profile prosecution of a number of newspaper editors and one member of Congress by the Federalists, became highly controversial. Some historians[who?] have noted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were relatively rarely enforced, as only 10 convictions under the Sedition Act have been identified and as Adams never signed a deportation order, and that the furor over the Alien and Sedition Acts was mainly stirred up by the Democratic-Republicans. However, other historians[who?] emphasize that the Acts were highly controversial from the outset, resulting in many aliens leaving the country voluntarily, and created an atmosphere where opposing the Federalists, even on the floor of Congress, could and did result in prosecution. The election of 1800 became a bitter and volatile battle, with each side expressing extraordinary fear of the other party and its policies.[89] After Democratic-Republicans won in 1800, they used the acts against Federalists before the acts finally expired.[90]
Reelection campaign 1800[link]
Main article: United States presidential election, 1800
The death of Washington, in 1799, weakened the Federalists, as they lost the one man who symbolized and united the party. In the presidential election of 1800, Adams and his fellow Federalist candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, went against the Republican duo of Jefferson and Burr. Hamilton tried his hardest to sabotage Adams's campaign in the hope of boosting Pinckney's chances of winning the presidency. In the end, Adams lost narrowly to Jefferson by 65 to 73 electoral votes, with New York casting the decisive vote.
Adams was defeated because of better organization by the Republicans and Federalist disunity; by the controversy of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the popularity of Jefferson in the south, and the effective politicking of Aaron Burr in New York State, where the legislature (which selected the electoral college) shifted from Federalist to Democratic-Republican on the basis of a few wards in New York City controlled by Burr's machine.[91] Ultimately, however, Jefferson owed his election victory to the South's inflated number of Electors, which counted slaves under the three-fifths compromise.[92]
In the closing months of his term Adams became the first president to occupy the new, but unfinished President's Mansion (later known as the White House), beginning November 1, 1800.[93] Since 1800 was not a leap year, he served one less day in office than all other one-term presidents.
Midnight Judges[link]
Main article: Midnight Judges
The lame-duck session of Congress enacted the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created a set of federal appeals courts between the district courts and the Supreme Court. The purpose of the statute was twofold—first, to remedy the defects in the federal judicial system inherent in the Judiciary Act of 1789, and, second, to enable the defeated Federalists to staff the new judicial offices with loyal Federalists in the face of the party's defeat in presidential and congressional elections in 1800.[94] As his term was expiring, Adams filled the vacancies created by this statute by appointing a series of judges, whom his opponents called the "Midnight Judges" because most of them were formally appointed days before the presidential term expired. Most of these judges lost their posts when the Jeffersonian Republicans enacted the Judiciary Act of 1802, abolishing the courts created by the Judiciary Act of 1801 and returning the structure of the federal courts to its original structure as specified in the 1789 statute. One of Adams' greatest legacies was his naming of John Marshall as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States to succeed Oliver Ellsworth, who had retired due to ill health. Marshall's long tenure represents the most lasting influence of the Federalists, as Marshall infused the Constitution with a judicious and carefully reasoned nationalistic interpretation and established the Judicial Branch as the equal of the Executive and Legislative branches.[95]
Major presidential actions[link]
- Built up the U.S. Navy
- Fought the Quasi-War with France, 1798–1800
- Signed Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
- Ended war with France through diplomacy, 1799–1800
- Appointed John Marshall to Supreme Court, 1801
Speeches[link]
Inaugural Addresses[link]
- Inaugural Address (March 4, 1797)
State of the Union Address[link]
- First State of the Union Address (November 22, 1797)
- Second State of the Union Address, (December 8, 1798)
- Third State of the Union Address, (December 3, 1799)
- Fourth State of the Union Address, (November 22, 1800)
Administration, Cabinet and Supreme Court Appointments 1797–1801[link]
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Post presidency[link]
Following his 1800 defeat, Adams retired into private life. Depressed when he left office, he did not attend Jefferson's inauguration, making him one of only four surviving presidents (i.e., those who did not die in office) not to attend his successor's inauguration. Adams's correspondence with Jefferson at the time of the transition suggests that he did not feel the animosity or resentment that later scholars have attributed to him. He left Washington before Jefferson's inauguration as much out of sorrow at the death of his son Charles Adams (due in part to the younger man's alcoholism) and his desire to rejoin his wife Abigail, who had left for Massachusetts months before the inauguration. Adams resumed farming at his home, Peacefield, near the town of Quincy, which had absorbed his birthplace, Braintree. He began to work on an autobiography (which he never finished), and resumed correspondence with such old friends as Benjamin Waterhouse and Benjamin Rush. He also began a bitter and resentful correspondence with an old family friend, Mercy Otis Warren, protesting how in her 1805 history of the American Revolution she had, in his view, caricatured his political beliefs and misrepresented his services to the country.[96]
After Jefferson's retirement from public life in 1809 after two terms as President, Adams became more vocal. For three years he published a stream of letters in the Boston Patriot newspaper, presenting a long and almost line-by-line refutation of an 1800 pamphlet by Hamilton attacking his conduct and character. Though Hamilton had died in 1804 from a mortal wound sustained in his notorious duel with Aaron Burr, Adams felt the need to vindicate his character against the New Yorker's vehement attacks.[97]
In early 1812, Adams reconciled with Jefferson. Their mutual friend Benjamin Rush, a fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence who had been corresponding with both, encouraged each man to reach out to the other. On New Year's Day 1812, Adams sent a brief, friendly note to Jefferson to accompany the delivery of "two pieces of homespun," a two-volume collection of lectures on rhetoric by John Quincy Adams. Jefferson replied immediately with a warm, friendly letter, and the two men revived their friendship, which they conducted by mail. The correspondence that they resumed in 1812 lasted the rest of their lives, and thereafter has been hailed as one of their greatest legacies and a monument of American literature.[98]
Their letters are rich in insight into both the period and the minds of the two Presidents and revolutionary leaders. Their correspondence lasted fourteen years, and consisted of 158 letters.[98] It was in these years that the two men discussed "natural aristocracy." Jefferson said, "The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that the form of government is best which provides most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?"[99] Adams wondered if it ever would be so clear who these people were, "Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me well founded. Birth and wealth are conferred on some men as imperiously by nature, as genius, strength, or beauty. . . . When aristocracies are established by human laws and honour, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence."[100] It would always be true, Adams argued, that fate would bestow influence on some men for reasons other than true wisdom and virtue. That being the way of nature, he thought such "talents" were natural. A good government, therefore, had to account for that reality.
Sixteen months before John Adams's death, his son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth President of the United States (1825–1829), the only son of a former President to hold the office until George W. Bush in 2001.
Adams's daughter Abigail ("Nabby") was married to Representative William Stephens Smith, but she returned to her parents' home after the failure of her marriage. She died of breast cancer in 1813. His son Charles died as an alcoholic in 1800. Abigail, his wife, died of typhoid on October 28, 1818. His son Thomas and his family lived with Adams and Louisa Smith (Abigail's niece by her brother William) to the end of Adams's life.[96]
Death[link]
Less than a month before his death, John Adams issued a statement about the destiny of the United States, which historians such as Joy Hakim have characterized as a "warning" for his fellow citizens. Adams said:
My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.[101]
On July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Adams died at his home in Quincy. Told that it was the Fourth, he answered clearly, "It is a great day. It is a good day." His last words have been reported as "Thomas Jefferson survives" (Jefferson himself, however, had died hours before he did). His death left Charles Carroll of Carrollton as the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams died while his son John Quincy Adams was president.[102]
His crypt lies at United First Parish Church (also known as the Church of the Presidents) in Quincy. Originally, he was buried in Hancock Cemetery, across the road from the Church. Until his record was broken by Ronald Reagan in 2001, he was the nation's longest-living President (90 years, 247 days) maintaining that record for 175 years.
Religious views[link]
Adams was raised a Congregationalist, since his ancestors were puritans. According to his biographer David McCullough, "as his family and friends knew, Adams was both a devout Christian, and an independent thinker".[103] In a letter to Benjamin Rush, Adams credited religion with the success of his ancestors since their migration to the New World in the 1630s.[104] Adams was educated at Harvard when the influence of deism was growing there, and sometimes used deistic terms in his speeches and writing.[105] He also believed that regular church service was beneficial to man's moral sense. Everett (1966) concludes that "Adams strove for a religion based on a common sense sort of reasonableness" and maintained that religion must change and evolve toward perfection.[106] Fielding (1940) argues that Adams's beliefs synthesized Puritan, deist, and humanist concepts. Adams at one point said that Christianity had originally been revelatory, but was being misinterpreted and misused in the service of superstition, fraud, and unscrupulous power.[107] Goff (1993) acknowledges Fielding's "persuasive argument that Adams never was a deist because he allowed the suspension of the laws of nature and believed that evil was internal, not the result of external institutions."[108]
Frazer (2004) notes that, while Adams shared many perspectives with deists, "Adams clearly was not a deist. Deism rejected any and all supernatural activity and intervention by God; consequently, deists did not believe in miracles or God's providence....Adams, however, did believe in miracles, providence, and, to a certain extent, the Bible as revelation."[109] Fraser argues that Adams's "theistic rationalism, like that of the other Founders, was a sort of middle ground between Protestantism and deism."[110] By contrast, David L. Holmes has argued that John Adams, beginning as a Congregationalist, ended his days as a Christian Unitarian, accepting central tenets of the Unitarian creed but also accepting Jesus as the redeemer of humanity and the biblical account of his miracles as true.[111] In common with many of his Protestant contemporaries, Adams criticized the claims to universal authority made by the Roman Catholic Church.[112] In 1796, Adams denounced political opponent Thomas Paine's criticisms of Christianity in his Deist book The Age of Reason, saying, "The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the Blackguard Paine say what he will."[113]
Ancestry[link]
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Biographies[link]
The first notable biography of John Adams appeared as the first two volumes of The Works of John Adams, Esq., Second President of the United States, edited by Charles Francis Adams and published between 1850 and 1856 by Charles C. Little and James Brown in Boston. This biography's first seven chapters were the work of John Quincy Adams, but the rest of the biography was the work of Charles Francis Adams.
The first modern biography was Honest John Adams, a 1933 biography by the noted French specialist in American history Gilbert Chinard, who came to Adams after writing his acclaimed 1929 biography of Thomas Jefferson. For a generation, Chinard's work was regarded as the best life of Adams, and it is still a key factor in determining the themes of Adams biographical and historical scholarship. Following the opening of the Adams family papers in the 1950s, Page Smith published the first major biography to use these previously inaccessible primary sources; his biography won a 1962 Bancroft Prize but was criticized for its scanting of Adams's intellectual life and its diffuseness. In 1975, Peter Shaw published The Character of John Adams, a thematic biography noted for its graceful prose and its psychological insight into Adams's life. The 1992 character study by Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, was Ellis's first major publishing success and remains one of the most useful and insightful studies of Adams's personality. In 1993, the Revolutionary War historian and biographer John E. Ferling published his acclaimed John Adams, also noted for its psychological sensitivity; many scholars regard it as the best biography to date.
In 2001, the popular historian David McCullough published a large biography of John Adams that won various awards and general acclaim. McCullough's biography was developed into a 2008 TV miniseries, in which Paul Giamatti portrayed John Adams. Finance writer James Grant published John Adams, Party of One in 2005.
See also[link]
 |
See more Wikipedia articles related to John Adams. |
- John Adams Building of the Library of Congress
- Suffolk County Courthouse, also known as the "John Adams Courthouse"
References[link]
- ^ "The religion of John Adams, second U.S. President". Adherents.com. http://www.adherents.com/people/pa/John_Adams.html. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- ^ "John Adams (1735-1826)". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/adams_john.shtml.
- ^ From David McCullough, John Adams, the middle brother was Peter and the youngest Elihu, who died of illness during the siege of Boston in 1775.
- ^ Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 8
- ^ See
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch. 1
- ^ a b Brookhiser, Richard. America's First Dynasty. The Adamses, 1735–1918. The Free Press, 2002, p.13
- ^ Timeline:Education and the Law – The John Adams Library
- ^ "Obama joins list of seven presidents with Harvard degrees | Harvard Gazette". News.harvard.edu. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/11/obama-joins-list-of-seven-presidents-with-harvard-degrees/. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 2
- ^ This Day in History in 1828, www.history.com. Retrieved 3-13-2008.
- ^ G. J. Barker-Benfield, "Stillbirth and Sensibility The Case of Abigail and John Adams," Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal, Spring 2012, Vol. 10 Issue 1, pp 2-29
- ^ Ferling (1992) p 117
- ^ Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, "Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-resistance to the Higher Powers," January 30, 1750. On Adams's attribution to Rev. Mayhew refer to the TeachingAmericanHistory.org
- ^ Ferling (1992) pp 53–63
- ^ Zobel, The Boston Massacre, (1970), 199–200.
- ^ 'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials'. John Adams. December 1770.
- ^ John E. Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution (2002) p. 77
- ^ "John Adams, 1st Vice President (1789–1797)". United States Senate. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_John_Adams.htm. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
- ^ In October 1775, he was also appointed the chief judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, but he never served, and resigned in February 1777. See Adams Time Line, Massachusetts Historical Society.
- ^ Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993)
- ^ Jensen, Founding, 684; Maier, American Scripture, 37. For the full text of the May 10 resolve see the Journals of the Continental Congress.
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 8 p 146
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 8.
- ^ Maier, American Scripture, 97–105; Boyd, Evolution, 21.
- ^ Boyd, Evolution, 22.
- ^ [1] From Adams' notes: "Why will you not? You ought to do it." "I will not." "Why?" "Reasons enough." "What can be your reasons?" "Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can." "Well," said Jefferson, "if you are decided, I will do as well as I can." "Very well. When you have drawn it up, we will have a meeting.""
- ^ TO WILLIAM P. GARDNER, Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 11.
- ^ McCullough, 153–157.
- ^ Gruber, Ira (1972). The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution. New York: Atheneum Press. p. 118. OCLC 1464455.
- ^ McCullough, 157.
- ^ McCullough, 158.
- ^ "Thoughts on Government Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies," ''The Works of John Adams'' Volume IV, pages 189-200 (1851). Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=snIvAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Thoughts%20on%20Government%3A%20Applicable%20to%20the%20Present%20State%20of%20the%20American%20Colonies%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage&q=%22Thoughts%20on%20Government:%20Applicable%20to%20the%20Present%20State%20of%20the%20American%20Colonies%22&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ Ferling (1992) pp 155–7, 213–5
- ^ Ferling (1992) p. 452
- ^ 'Thoughts on Government", Works of John Adams, IV:195
- ^ John Adams by David McCullough, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2001. Pg 180-187. ISBN 978-0-684-81363-9
- ^ McCullough, David. John Adams. pg 179. Books.google.com. March 15, 2008. ISBN 978-0-684-81363-9. http://books.google.com/?id=E9TOxypjZY4C&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=%22john+adams%22+%22speak+french%22. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- ^ John Adams 1735-1784 - Vol I by Page Smith — pg.451
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 11–12
- ^ In February 1782 the Frisian states had been the first Dutch province to recognize the United States, while France had been the first European country to grant diplomatic recognition, in 1778).
- ^ Up till 1794 a total of eleven loans were granted in Amsterdam to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders.
- ^ "Dutch American Friendship Day / Heritage Day – U.S. Embassy The Hague, Netherlands". Thehague.usembassy.gov. November 16, 1991. http://thehague.usembassy.gov/friendship_days2.html. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- ^ Stockdale, E. (2005). 'Tis Treason, My Good Man! Four Revolutionary Presidents and a Piccadilly Bookshop. London: The British Library. pp. p.148. ISBN 0-7123-0699-4.
- ^ The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States of America. Books.google.com. 1833. http://books.google.com/?id=dmgUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=Thulemeier+Magdeburg. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- ^ Adams & Adams 1851, p. 392.
- ^ See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=6193.
- ^ Gordon, Lyndall (2005). "Chapter 3: New Life at Newington". Vindication : a life of Mary Wollstonecraft. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-019802-2.
- ^ Ronald M. Peters. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: A Social Compact (1978) p 13 says Adams was its "principal architect."
- ^ Letter to John Jebb, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, Volume 9, by John Adams, (Little, Brown 1854), pg 540
- ^ "John Adams: Defence of the Constitutions, 1787". Constitution.org. http://www.constitution.org/jadams/ja1_00.htm. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- ^ Turgot to Richard Price, March 22, 1778, in Works of John Adams, IV:279
- ^ Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (2006) pp 173–202; see also Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993).
- ^ Thompson,1999
- ^ Works of John Adams, IV:557
- ^ Madison, James. "The Federalist No. 51". http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_Federalist_Papers/No._51&oldid=504230.
- ^ George A. Peek, Jr., ed. The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections (2003) p. xvii
- ^ Littlefield, Daniel C. "John Jay, the Revolutionary Generation, and Slavery." New York History 2000 81(1): p 91–132. ISSN 0146-437X
- ^ a b c Wiencek, Henry. An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, page 215 (2004).
- ^ Ferling (1992) pp 172–3
- ^ Moore, George. Notes on the history of slavery in Massachusetts, pages 200-203 (1866).
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 15
- ^ Ferling (1992) p 311
- ^ Ferling (1992) pp 316–32
- ^ "Biography of John Adams". Whitehouse.gov. August 5, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ja2.html. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- ^ Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1993), pp 513–37
- ^ Arthur Meier Schlesinger, ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1984 (Vol 1) (1986), essay and primary sources on 1796
- ^ Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams (1957) ch 12
- ^ McCullough p 471
- ^ a b George C. Herring, From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776 (2008) p 89
- ^ Chernow, Ron. "Alexander Hamilton". 2004. p647. Penguin Press.
- ^ George C. Herring, From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776 (2008) p 90
- ^ George C. Herring, From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776 (2008) p 91
- ^ Ellis (1998) p 57
- ^ Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A history of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)
- ^ George C. Herring, From colony to superpower: U.S. foreign relations since 1776 (2008) p 82
- ^ William Chambers, The First Party System: Federalists and Republicans (1972)
- ^ Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams (1957) ch 13; Miller, The Federalist Era (1960), ch. 12
- ^ Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1993) pp. 714–19
- ^ Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams (1957) ch 13; Miller, The Federalist Era (1960), ch. 13
- ^ Elkins and McKitrick The Age of Federalism pp 696–700; Paul Douglas Newman, Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution (2004).
- ^ Kurtz (1967) p 331
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 18
- ^ "2nd President, John Adams". Presidentialpetmuseum.com. http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/presidents/02JA.htm. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ Letter to William Smith, November 13, 1787
- ^ a b Knott. "Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth". p48
- ^ Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1993) ch. 15
- ^ James Morton Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (1967)
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 17
- ^ Chernow, Ron. "Alexander Hamilton". 2004. p668. Penguin Press.
- ^ Ferling (1992) ch 19; Ferling (2004)
- ^ An American History Lesson For Pat Buchana, Kenneth C. Davis, Huffington Post, July 18, 2009.
- ^ "Overview of the White House". White House Museum. http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/overview.htm. Retrieved July 16, 2008.
- ^ See generally Kathryn Preyer (Maeva Marcus, R. Kent Newmyer, and Mary Sarah Bilder, eds.), Blackstone in America (Cambridge, Eng., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
- ^ Ferling (1992) p 409.
- ^ a b Ferling (1992) ch 20
- ^ Ferling (1992) p. 429
- ^ a b Cappon (1988)
- ^ Cappon, ed., 387
- ^ Cappon, ed. 400
- ^ Hakim. Joy. The New Nation, page 97 (Oxford University Press 2003).
- ^ Ferling, John Adams: A Life (2010) p. 444
- ^ McCullough, David. "John Adams". p18
- ^ McCullough, David. "John Adams". p22
- ^ Vivian Trow Thayer, Religion in public education (Greenwood Press, 1979) p 16
- ^ Robert B. Everett, "The Mature Religious Thought of John Adams," Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association (1966), p 49–57; [ISSN 0361-6207].
- ^ Howard Ioan Fielding, "John Adams: Puritan, Deist, Humanist," Journal of Religion, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Jan. 1940), pp. 33–46 in JSTOR
- ^ Philip Kevin Goff, The Religious World of the Revolutionary John Adams (PhD dissertation), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1993, p. 382.
- ^ Gregg L. Frazer, The Political Theology of the American Founding (PhD dissertation), Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, 2004, p. 46
- ^ Gregg L. Frazer, The Political Theology of the American Founding (PhD dissertation), Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, 2004, p. 50.
- ^ David L. Holmes, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 73-78.
- ^ See TeachingAmericanHistory.org: " A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law", John Adams, 1765
- ^ The Works of John Adams (1854), vol III, p 421, diary entry for July 26, 1796.
- ^ a b The Vinton Memorial, page 300, John Adams Vinton, 1858. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=IV8hPxRANm8C&dq=Thomas%20Boylston%20Sarah%201615&pg=PA300#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ a b c d The Vinton Memorial, page 298, John Adams Vinton, 1858. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=IV8hPxRANm8C&dq=Thomas%20Boylston%20Sarah%201615&pg=PA298#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ a b c d The Vinton Memorial, page 297, John Adams Vinton, 1858. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=IV8hPxRANm8C&dq=Thomas%20Boylston%20Sarah%201615&pg=PA297#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ The Vinton Memorial, page 296, John Adams Vinton, 1858. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=IV8hPxRANm8C&dq=Thomas%20Boylston%20Sarah%201615&pg=PA296#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ a b c d e f The Vinton Memorial, page 309, John Adams Vinton, 1858. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=IV8hPxRANm8C&dq=Thomas%20Boylston%20Sarah%201615&pg=PA309#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
- ^ a b c d e The Vinton Memorial, page 308, John Adams Vinton, 1858. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=IV8hPxRANm8C&dq=Thomas%20Boylston%20Sarah%201615&pg=PA308#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-06-12.
Bibliography[link]
- Adams, John; Adams, Charles Francis (1851). The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography, continued. Diary. Essays and controversial papers of the Revolution. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States. 3. Little, Brown,. p. 392.
- Brown, Ralph A. The Presidency of John Adams. (1988). Political narrative.
- Chinard, Gilbert. Honest John Adams. (1933). Dated but still-valuable biography.
- Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism. (1993), highly detailed political interpretation of 1790s
- Ellis, Joseph J. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993), interpretative essay by Pulitzer Prize winning scholar.
- Ferling, John. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. (2004), narrative history of the election.
- Ferling, John. John Adams: A Life (1992), full scale biography
- Freeman, Joanne B. Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic. (2001) – chapters 2 [on John Adams and print culture] and 5 [on the election of 1800] are of special relevance.
- Grant, James. John Adams: Party of One.(2005), one-volume biography, notable for its modesty and for its grasp of finances as well as politics.
- Haraszti, Zoltan. John Adams and the Prophets of Progress. (1952). Incisive analysis of John Adams's political comments on numerous authors through examining his marginalia in his copies of their books.
- Howe, John R., Jr. The Changing Political Thought of John Adams. (1966). Stressing change over time in Adams's thought, this book is still a valuable and clearly written treatment of the subject.
- Knollenberg, Bernard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766–1775,(2003). Online edition.
- Kurtz, Stephen G. The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, 1795–1800 (1957). Detailed political narrative.
- McCullough, David. John Adams. (2002). Best-selling popular biography, stressing Adams's character and his marriage with Abigail while scanting his ideas and constitutional thoughts. Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
- Miller, John C. The Federalist Era: 1789–1801. (1960). Slightly dated but still-valuable, thorough survey of politics between 1789 and 1801.
- Ryerson, Richard Alan, ed. John Adams and the Founding of the Republic (2001). Essays by scholars: "John Adams and the Massachusetts Provincial Elite," by William Pencak; "Before Fame: Young John Adams and Thomas Jefferson," by John Ferling; "John Adams and the 'Bolder Plan,'" by Gregg L. Lint; "In the Shadow of Washington: John Adams as Vice President," by Jack D. Warren; "The Presidential Election of 1796," by Joanne B. Freeman; "The Disenchantment of a Radical Whig: John Adams Reckons with Free Speech," by Richard D. Brown; "'Splendid Misery': Abigail Adams as First Lady," by Edith B. Gelles; "John Adams and the Science of Politics," by C. Bradley Thompson; and "Presidents as Historians: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson," by Herbert Sloan.
- Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. (1995), detailed political narrative of 1790s, stressing the emergence of "proto-parties."
- Shaw, Peter. The Character of John Adams. (1975). Elegant short life, infused with psychological insight and sensitivity to Adams's inner life as well as his intellectual life.
- Smith, Page. John Adams. (1962) 2 volume; full-scale biography, winner of the Bancroft Prize
- Thompson, C. Bradley. John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty. (1998). Acclaimed analysis of Adams's political thought; insisting Adams was the greatest political thinker among the Founding Generation and anticipated many of the ideas in The Federalist.
- White, Leonard D. The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History (1956), thorough analysis of the mechanics of government in 1790s
- Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A history of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009), major new survey of the era in the Oxford History of the United States
- Wood, Gordon S.. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (2006). The chapter on Adams, a slightly revised version of chapter XIV of the author's The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (1969), may be the most influential short treatment of John Adams's political thought ever written.
Primary sources[link]
- Adams, C.F. The Works of John Adams, with Life (10 vols., Boston, 1850–1856)
- Butterfield, L. H. et al., eds., The Adams Papers (1961– ). Multivolume letterpress edition of all letters to and from major members of the Adams family, plus their diaries; still incomplete. "The Adams Family Papers Editorial Project". Masshist.org. http://www.masshist.org/adams_editorial/volumes_published.cfm. Retrieved March 2, 2010.
- Cappon, Lester J. ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (1988).
- Carey, George W., ed. The Political Writings of John Adams. (2001). Compilation of extracts from Adams's major political writings.
- Diggins, John P., ed. The Portable John Adams. (2004)
- John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair, eds. Spur of Fame, The Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813 (1966) ISBN 978-0-86597-287-2
- C. Bradley Thompson, ed. Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, (2001) ISBN 978-0-86597-285-8
- John Adams, Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America (1774) online version
- Brinkley, Alan, and Davis Dyer. The American Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin company, 2004.
- Hogan, Margaret and C. James Taylor, eds. My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.
- Taylor, Robert J. et al., eds. Papers of John Adams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
- Wroth, L. Kinvin and Hiller B. Zobel, eds. The Legal Papers of John Adams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
- Butterfield, L. H., ed. Adams Family Correspondence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
External links[link]
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- John Adams at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- John Adams at Find a Grave
- John Adams: A Resource Guide at the Library of Congress
- John Adams at the White House
- John Adams Exhibit at Mass.gov
- John Adams and the Massachusetts Constitution at Mass.gov
- The John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library
- Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive at the Massachusetts Historical Society
- American President: John Adams (1735–1826) at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia
- John Adams Papers at the Avalon Project
- John Adams: "Inaugural Address", March 4, 1797 at The American Presidency Project
- State of the Union Addresses, at The American Presidency Project: 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800
- "Thoughts on Government" Adams, April 1776 at the Constitution Society
- The Health and Medical History of President John Adams at DoctorZebra
- John Adams at The American Revolution website
- John Adams at C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits
- John Adams at the Jewish Encyclopedia
- Works by John Adams at Project Gutenberg
- Booknotes interview with Joseph Ellis on Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, September 5, 1993.
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | John Adams |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | Second U.S. president |
| Date of birth | October 30, 1735 |
| Place of birth | Quincy, Massachusetts |
| Date of death | July 4, 1826 |
| Place of death | Quincy, Massachusetts |
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| Glenn Beck | |
|---|---|
 Beck speaking at the Values Voter Summit in 2011 |
|
| Born | Glenn Edward Lee Beck[1] (1964-02-10) February 10, 1964 (age 48) Everett, Washington, U.S. |
| Residence | Fort Worth, Texas[2] |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Sehome High School |
| Occupation | Radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host |
| Home town | Mount Vernon, Washington, U.S. |
| Salary | US$32 million (2009–10)[3][4] |
| Net worth | US$65 million (2011) |
| Religion | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)[5][6][7][8] |
| Spouse | Claire (1983–1994) Tania (m. 1999); 4 children total |
| Awards | Defender of Israel Award, Zionist Organization of America 2011[9] |
| Website | |
| Glenn Beck's Official Website | |
Glenn Edward Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. He formerly hosted the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN and from January 2009 to June 2011 on the Fox News Channel. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.[3] Beck is the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multimedia production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet. It was announced on April 6, 2011, that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News later in the year but would team with Fox to "produce a slate of projects for FOX News Channel and FOX News' digital properties".[10] Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011.[11] In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list.[12]
Beck's supporters praise him as a constitutional stalwart defending traditional American values,[13] while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric for ratings.[14]
Contents |
Personal life[link]
Early years[link]
Glenn Edward Lee Beck was born in Everett, Washington, to William and Mary Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington at the time of their son's birth.[15] The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington,[16] where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area.[17] He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century.[18] Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school[19] in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington, in the Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard.[19] Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.[19][20]
After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington,[21] where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982.[22] Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa.[23] In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months,[24] taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.[21]
Adulthood[link]
"You've never met a more flawed guy than me."
— Glenn Beck[25]
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire.[26] In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988.[26] The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. A recovering alcoholic and drug addict,[27] Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.[28][29]
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain.[28] He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting.[28] Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.[21]
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time.[30] Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.[28][31]
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores".[28] As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved six wide-ranging authors, comprising what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche.[28][30] During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later.[28]
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania.[28] After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they[28] joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary.[32][33] Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray.[28] Beck and his current wife have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple live in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.[34][35]
Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not.'" The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.[36]
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas.[2]
Career[link]
Further information: Mercury Radio Arts
"Glenn Beck has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth."
In 2002 Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts[30][37] as the umbrella over various broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show entities.
Radio[link]
See also: Glenn Beck Program
In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.[26] In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky.[26] His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team.[38] Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations.[30] The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.[citation needed]
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program.[28] During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage.[26] In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.[26]
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean.[28] According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out.[28] When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in Hamden, Connecticut.[28] In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups.[39] When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.[28]
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, Florida, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year.[40][41] In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners.[42] Glenn Beck is number three in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.[43]
Television[link]
See also: Glenn Beck (TV program)
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective".[44] At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace.[45] In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.[46]
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News.[47] After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version.[48] One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin[49] He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call".[50] As of September 2009[update] Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.[51][52]
His show's high ratings have not come without controversy.[47] The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" has complicated the channel's and their journalist's efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization.[47] Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."[47]
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011.[53] His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30.[54][55] FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties.[10] Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show."[56] Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn’t belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods."[11] In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live.[11] Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet channel.[11]
GBTV[link]
Glenn Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011,[57] and a new two-hour show began streaming his subscription-based internet TV network, GBTV, on September 12, 2011.[58][59] Using a subscription model, it was estimated Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation.[60] This was later upgraded to $40 million by the Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. [61]
Books[link]
"You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense."
— Glenn Beck, Common Sense, 2009[62]
Beck has reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories as of 2010[update]: Hardcover Non-Fiction,[63][64] Paperback Non-Fiction,[63] Hardcover Fiction,[65] and Children's Picture Books.[66]
- Non-fiction
- The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland. Simon and Schuster. 2003. ISBN 978-0-7434-9696-4. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743496965. [67]
- An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems. Simon and Schuster. 2007. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8.
- America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades. 2008. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743598547. (Audiobook)
- An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). ISBN 978-1-59038-944-7[68]
- America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). ISBN 978-0-7435-9854-5
- Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8[69][70][71]
- Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4165-9501-4
- Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). ISBN 1-4423-3396-0
- Idiots Unplugged, 2010 (Audiobook)[72]
- Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. ISBN 1-4423-3457-6.[73]
- The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1-4516-2551-6.
- The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1-4516-5061-7.
- Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, As You've Never Seen Him. Simon and Schuster. 2011. ISBN 978-1-4516-5931-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=WCHGmGTdnk8C&dq.
- Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say. Simon and Schuster. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4516-9347-8. http://books.simonandschuster.com/Coward/Glenn-Beck/9781451693478.
- Fiction
- The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. ISBN 978-1-4165-9485-7
- The Overton Window. Threshold Editions. June 2010. ISBN 978-1-4391-8430-1. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439184305. [74][75]
- Beck, Glenn; Baart, Nicole (2011). The Snow Angel. Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1-4391-8720-3.
- Children's
- The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. ISBN 978-1-4169-9543-2
- Beck, Glenn; Schoebinger, Chris; Dorman, Brandon (illustrator) (2011). The Snow Angel. Aladdin Books. ISBN 978-1-4424-4448-5.
Beck also authorized a comic book:
- Political Power: Glenn Beck, by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011; ISN B004VGB4FO[76]
Stage shows and speeches[link]
"When Beck meets his fans, he does so with the gusto of a public figure engaging his constituents. People he meets often give him presents and notes. He signs autographs, poses for photos. He has perfected the Everyman shtick that presidential candidates spend years trying to master in places like Iowa."
— The New York Times Magazine, 2010[30]
Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon Magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist".[77] A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country.[78]
In Beck's hometown of Mt. Vernon, Washington, supporters and detractors hold handmade signs on the day Beck was honored by the mayor.
The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters.[79] The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.[80]
In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation.[81] In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.[82]
In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009, as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award.[83] The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.[84]
In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption".[85] In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.[86]
Philanthropy[link]
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, designed to sustain itself through its entreneurship and without grants or donations.[87] In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the minuscule, upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website 1791.com. The line's maiden offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.[88]
Projects and rallies[link]
9-12 Project and Tea Party protests[link]
Main article: 9-12 Project
In March 2009 Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, that is named for nine principles and twelve values that he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks.[89] The Colorado 9-12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".
Restoring Honor rally[link]
Main article: Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally — which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism — was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement.[90]
[edit] America's First Christmas
In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas".[91] He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.[92]
2011 international tour[link]
Main article: Restoring Courage tour
Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people".[93][94] After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.[95]
Political views[link]
Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings.[96] Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society.[97] Beck believes in low national debt, and has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence."[98] He supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation.[99]
In an O'Reilly Factor interview in August 2010, when Beck was asked if he "believe(s) that gay marriage is a threat to [this] country in any way", he stated, "No I don't…I believe that Thomas Jefferson said: 'If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket what difference is it to me?'"[100]
Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming.[101] He holds that there is a legitimate case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind, and has tried to do his part by buying a home with a "green" design.[102] He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.[103]
Opposition to progressivism[link]
"What’s the difference between a communist or socialist and a progressive? Revolution or evolution? One requires a gun and the other eats away slowly."
— Glenn Beck, keynote address at the February 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference[104][105]
File:GlennBeckTreeOfRevolution.jpg
Glenn Beck's progressive "Tree of Revolution" chalk board, from the September 18, 2009, episode of his television show. The "roots" of the tree (from L to R) are made up Che Guevara, Woodrow Wilson, and Saul Alinsky, while the "trunk" is the Students for a Democratic Society and Cloward–Piven strategy. Comprising the "money leaves" of the tree (from L to R) are Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Wade Rathke, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Dale Rathke, President Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Valerie Jarrett, Apollo Alliance, Van Jones, Leo Gerard, Carl Pope, Ruben Aronin, and Jeff Jones.[106]
During his 2010 keynote speech to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote the word "progressivism" on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!"[104][105] According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.[104] Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived".[104] In Beck’s book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."[104]
A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform America.[107][108][109] Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven.[107][110] Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines,[111] Maurice Strong, George Soros,[112] John Holdren and President Barack Obama.[108] According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda.[108][112] In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli Nazi hunters, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter. I’m going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don’t care if they’re in nursing homes."[30]
Liberal historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society.[113] According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:
Glenn Beck is trying to give viewers a version of American history that is supposedly hidden. Supposedly, all we historians — left, right and center — have been doing for the past 100 years is to keep true American history from you. And that true American history is what Glenn Beck is teaching. It's a version of history that is beyond skewed. But of course, that's what Beck expects us to say. He lives in a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, where if people who actually know the history say what he's teaching is junk, he says, 'That's because you're trying to hide the truth.'[113]
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they’ve got access to secret knowledge."[30]
Influences[link]
Political and historical[link]
"The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style – the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country – is aflame again, fanned from both right and left ... No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right."
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist.[114][115] As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society,[116] and limited-government activist,[117] Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting.[117] Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with Communists to foist a world government on the United States.[104] Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist[118] and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981),[117] which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life".[117] According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation".[119] The book is touted by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person".[117] Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months.[117] In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite".[104] Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen",[120] refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.[121]
In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict",[104] noting that in Beck's novel The Overton Window, which Beck describes as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his characters states "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."[104]
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview.[122] According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."[122]
Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s New Deal or Raw Deal.[104] Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group[104] discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture,[123] and The Creature from Jekyll Island, which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by G. Edward Griffin.[124]
On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People — [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America."[125] Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.[126][127][128]
Religious[link]
Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity, and friendlessness.[129] In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah,[130] detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.[131]
Writer Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture".[114] Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality.[114] Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and for not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism".[132] Beck has acknowledged that the Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."[133]
Public reception[link]
"To his admirers, Glenn Beck has been a voice crying in the wilderness, a prophet who warns us that we have been wandering in darkness too long. To detractors, he is a clown and a buffoon, at best, a dangerous demagogue, at worst."
In 2009, the Glenn Beck show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV.[135][136][137][138] For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America’s "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009.[139] In 2010, Beck was selected for the Times top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.[140]
Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer,[141] a commentator rather than a reporter,[142] and a "rodeo clown".[141] He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."[143]
Time Magazine described Beck as "[t]he new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program.[144] (Paul Krugman[145] and Mark Potok,[146] on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege.[144] An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us".[80]
Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans".[141] One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".[80]
Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at The Atlantic's 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying."[147] The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director Peter Hart argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries as well as promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics.[148] Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."[47]
Glenn Beck was honored by Liberty University during their 2010 Commencement exercises with an honorary Doctoral Degree. During his keynote address to the students, he stated "As a man who was never able to go to college — I’m the first in my family that went; I went for one semester; I couldn’t afford more than that — I am humbly honored."[149] In June 2011, Beck announced he was to be the honored with the Zionist Organization of America's 2011 Defender of Israel Award.[150]
Laura Miller writes in Salon.com that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:
"The Paranoid Style in American Politics" reads like a playbook for the career of Glenn Beck, right down to the paranoid's "quality of pedantry" and "heroic strivings for 'evidence'", embodied in Beck's chalkboard and piles of books. But Beck lacks an archenemy commensurate with his stratospheric ambitions, which makes him appear even more absurd to outsiders.[151]
Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds.[152][153][154][155] Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?"[129] Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon.[156][157] Daniel Cox, Director of Research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:
The disparity between Glenn Beck's favorability ratings and how people feel about him as a religious leader suggests that people are more drawn to him for political reasons than religious ones. Many of Beck's strongest supporters, such as Republicans and white Evangelicals, perceive real differences between their own faith and Beck's Mormon faith, and this may become a liability in his efforts to lead as a religious figure.[156]
Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history."[158] Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian.” Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."[159]
Critical biographies[link]
In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title mocking Beck's work, Common Sense.[160] In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized that "Beck’s politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating: "Beck’s true religion is not Patriotism, Mormonism, or Conservatism. His true religion is cross-platform self-marketing ... According to Beck’s worldview, there’s no inherent contradiction between his sophisticated instinct for self-promotion, his propagandist rodeo clown act, his self-image as a media mogul, and his professed belief system. I think he actually believes that God wants him to make a ton of money and become this huge celebrity by fear mongering and generally doing whatever it takes in the media to promote right-wing causes."[161]
In September 2010, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch released The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.[162] One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt.[162] Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film Leap of Faith, before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona:
His (Beck's) adenoidal 'Clydie Clyde' voice is based on morning zoo pioneer Scott Shannon's "Mr. Leonard" character. His history is borrowed from the widely debunked work of W. Cleon Skousen. His conspiracy theories are horked from Alex Jones and maybe Jack Van Impe. His anti-Obama, anti-socialist monologues are pure Joe McCarthy. His chalkboard is stolen from televangelist Gene Scott. His solemn, over-processed radio monologue delivery is a dead ringer for Eric Bogosian in Talk Radio. This is all well-worn stuff, but no one has drawn it all together and sculpted it for the purpose of conning an especially susceptible audience during turbulent racial and economic times.[162]
In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America.[163]
Satire, spoof and parody[link]
"I'm a rodeo clown. It takes great skill....I say on the air all time, 'if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.'"
— Glenn Beck[25]
Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live.[164] The Daily Show's Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9-12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices",[165] impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show,[166] and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking".[167] Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker".[168] Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs".[169] The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck".[170] Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon".[171] Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers",[172] while The Buffalo Beast, named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show."[30] The October 31 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor,[173] even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March[174] and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.[175]
Public disputes[link]
Obama[link]
Several incidents involving Beck and President Barack Obama have resulted in notable public controversy. In response to Obama's remarks on the Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."[176] These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change.[177] In 2009, the boycott resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers.[178][179][180] He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black liberation theology.[181]
Van Jones[link]
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones' "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary communist." In rating Beck's claim as "Mostly False," PolitiFact said "Beck would have been on solid ground if he said Jones used to be a communist. Jones has been up front about that[182]."
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots [183] , and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the 9/11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.[80]
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones's position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009.[184] Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".[183]
ACORN[link]
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons, including claims of voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election.[185] In September 2009, he broadcast a series of "highly edited" undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes.[186][187] Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.[80]
Satire website[link]
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw.[188] Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck.[189] The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.[190]
Jewish Funds for Justice[link]
In January 2011, in protest at what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter in paid advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice, which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".[191] The letter states that Beck and Fox had "...diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive said to Reuters that the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".[192][193]
Reform Judaism[link]
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, Jewish rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks as "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".[194][195]
2011 Norway attacks[link]
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In the wake of the 2011 Norway attacks, Beck received condemnation for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."[196] The statement was ill-received in Norway, leading senior political commentator Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist" and a "fascist",[197] and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful".[198] Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9-12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.[198][199][200][201][202] Beck condemned the attack in spite of his statements about its victims.[203]
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ Beck, Glenn (January 4, 2011), "America at a Crossroads", Fox News: p. 2, http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/glenn-beck/transcript/america-crossroads?page=2, retrieved January 21, 2011
- ^ a b "Glenn Beck confirms move to Westlake, with eye on building home", Pegasus News, July 12, 2011
- ^ a b c Rose, Lacey (April 26, 2010), "Glenn Beck Inc", Forbes
- ^ a b "In Pictures: 'How Glenn Beck Makes His Money'" slideshow by Forbes magazine
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- ^ Stossel, John (2009-06-17). "A Refreshing Spin on Cable TV". RealClearPolitics (originally broadcast by 20/20). http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/17/a_refreshing_spin_on_cable_tv_97025.html. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
- ^ Video: Doom Bunker, Glenn Beck's "War Room" from The Colbert Report, aired on March 4, 2009
- ^ Good, Chris (November 12, 2009). "South Park Does Glenn Beck". The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/11/south-park-does-glenn-beck/30090. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
- ^ Video: "Victim in Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck", Onion News Network
- ^ Video: "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse" by Current TVs SuperNews!
- ^ Bill Maher Talks Glenn Beck's 'Diabetic Mall-Walkers', Summer Of Racism (VIDEO) by Bill Maher, The Huffington Post, September 15, 2010
- ^ Hartenstein, Meena (October 31, 2010), "Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity' drew 200,000, beating estimated attendance at Glenn Beck's", Daily News (New York)
- ^ "Press Conference - Stephen Stuffed in the Capsule". Comedy Central. http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=363898&title=press-conference-stephen. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
- ^ "Press Conference - Internet Influence". Comedy Central. http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=363888&title=press-conference-internet. Retrieved 2010-10-30.
- ^ Bauder, David (2009-07-28). "Fox's Glenn Beck: President Obama is a racist". CBS News. Associated Press. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/29/politics/main5195604.shtml. Retrieved 2009-07-29.
- ^ Ariens, Chris (2009-07-28). "Glenn Beck's 'Racist' Comment Sends Advertisers Elsewhere". TVNewser. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fnc/glenn_becks_racist_comment_sends_advertisers_elsewhere_123710.asp. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
- ^ Hein, Kenneth (2009-07-12). "Fox News' "Glenn Beck" loses advertisers". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSTRE57C07920090813. Retrieved 2009-07-13.
- ^ Siemaszko, Corky (2009-09-03). "Advertisers continue to abandon Glenn Beck after pundit had called President Obama a 'racist'". Daily News (New York). http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/09/03/2009-09-03_advertisers_.html. Retrieved 2009-09-03.
- ^ Jones, Sam (October 4, 2009). "Waitrose dumps Fox News in protest over remarks about Barack Obama". The Guardian (London: Guardian Media Group). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/04/waitrose-fox-news-barack-obama. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
- ^ Beck: “I have a big fat mouth”
- ^ "Glenn Beck says Van Jones is an avowed communist". PolitiFact.com. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/08/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-says-van-jones-avowed-communist/. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
- ^ a b Wilson, Scott; Franke-Ruta, Garance (2009-09-06). "White House Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy Over Past Activism". The Washington Post. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/06/van_jones_resigns.html. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
- ^ Brodey, John (2009-09-06). "White House Official Resigns After G.O.P. Criticism". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/politics/07vanjones.html?_r=1. Retrieved 2009-09-22.
- ^ Montopoli, Brian (2009-09-16). "ACORN Sting Lands Housing Group in Conservative Crosshairs". Political Hotsheet (CBS News). http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/16/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5315657.shtml. Retrieved 2009-10-02.
- ^ "http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549241,00.html#ixzz1s4kt8vBM". FoNews.com]]. 2009-09-11. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549241,00.html#ixzz1s4kt8vBM. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
- ^ Shifrel, Scott (2010-03-01). "B'klyn ACORN cleared over giving illegal advice on how to hide money from prostitution". Daily News (New York). http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/01/2010-03-01_bklyn_acorn_cleared_over_giving_illegal_advice_on_how_to_hide_money_from_prostit.html. Retrieved 2010-03-24.
- ^ Bremer, Jack (September 11, 2009). "Fox’s Glenn Beck fights ‘rape and murder’ website". The First Post (Dennis Publishing). http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53410,news,fox-news-star-glenn-beck-fights-rape-and-murder-website. Retrieved 2009-10-04. [dead link]
- ^ Nate Anderson, "Can a mere domain name be defamation? Glenn Beck says yes", Ars Technica, 2009
- ^ Nate Anderson, "Glenn Beck loses domain dispute, still ends up with domain", Ars Technica, 2009
- ^ Jewish Funds for Justice website
- ^ Pilkington, Ed (January 27, 2011). "Rabbis warn Rupert Murdoch: Fox News and Glenn Beck 'using' Holocaust". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/27/rabbis-murdoch-fox-glenn-beck-holocaust.
- ^ Stern, Andrew (January 27, 2011). "UPDATE 1-Rabbis protest Fox host's use of Holocaust imagery". Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN2620137220110127.
- ^ Mandell, Nina (February 24, 2011), "Glenn Beck apologizes for comparing Reform Judaism to radical Islam; says it was a bad analogy", Daily News (New York), http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/02/24/2011-02-24_glenn_beck_apologizes_for_comparing_reform_judaism_to_radical_islam_says_it_was_.html, retrieved February 26, 2011
- ^ Bershad, Jon (February 24, 2011), "Glenn Beck Apologizes For Reform Judaism Comments", Mediaite, http://www.mediaite.com/tv/glenn-beck-apologizes-for-reform-judaism-comments/, retrieved February 26, 2011
- ^ Time. July 26, 2011. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/glenn-beck-site-of-norway-massacre-sounds-like-the-hitler-youth/.
- ^ "Upset by Hitler comparison|http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/07/25/nyheter/utenriks/usa/innenriks/politikk/17453053/".
- ^ a b Swaine, Jon (July 25, 2011), "Glenn Beck Compares Dead Teenagers to Hitler Youth", The Daily Telegraph (London), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8660986/Norway-shooting-Glenn-Beck-compares-dead-teenagers-to-Hitler-youth.html, retrieved July 25, 2011
- ^ "Opprørt over Hitler-sammenlikning - nyheter". Dagbladet.no. 2011-07-25. http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/07/25/nyheter/utenriks/usa/innenriks/politikk/17453053/. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ Quinn, Ben (July 26, 2011). "Glenn Beck likens Norwegian dead to Hitler youth". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/26/glenn-beck-norwegian-dead-hitler.
- ^ JTA. "Beck likens Norway victims to Hitler Youth [AUDIO] | Norway". Jewish Journal. http://www.jewishjournal.com/glenn_beck/article/beck_likens_norway_victims_to_hitler_youth_20110725. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ USA Today. July 25, 2011. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/07/glenn-beck-compares-norwegian-victims-to-hitler-youth/1.
- ^ Wire Staff (July 25, 2011). "Beck: Norway slaughter camp smacks of 'Hitler Youth'". CNN. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-25/politics/beck.norway_1_glenn-beck-summer-camp-norway?_s=PM:POLITICS. Retrieved July 27, 2011.
External links[link]
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- Glenn Beck at the Open Directory Project
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- Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
- Official Site at Fox News
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- Works by or about Glenn Beck in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Multimedia[link]
- A Day in the Life of Glenn Beck - slideshow by Time magazine
- Katie Couric Interview of Glenn Beck - video by CBS News
- "Brand it like Beck" - video interview by Forbes magazine
- John Stossel: "Glenn Beck, Conservative Narcissist?" - video by ABC News
- Glenn Beck Discusses his Mormonism - video testimonial at The Week
- In the Words of Glenn Beck - slideshow by Life magazine
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Beck, Glenn |
| Alternative names | Beck, Glenn Edward Lee |
| Short description | U.S. talk radio and television host |
| Date of birth | 1964-02-10 |
| Place of birth | Mount Vernon, Washington, U.S. |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Glenn_Beck
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| Anita Dunn | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| White House Director of Communications | |
| In office April 21, 2009 – November 30, 2009 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Ellen Moran |
| Succeeded by | Daniel Pfeiffer |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Spouse(s) | Robert Bauer |
| Children | Steven |
| Alma mater | University of Maryland |
Anita Dunn is a political strategist who served as White House Communications Director from April through November 2009. She is a senior partner at SKDKnickerbocker, a strategic communications firm in Washington, D.C., and has recently become a contributor for NBC News / MSNBC / CNBC.[citation needed]
Contents |
Life and career[link]
Dunn began her career in the Carter White House,[1] first as an intern for White House Communications Director Gerald Rafshoon and then worked for chief of staff Hamilton Jordan. She worked on the campaign of Senator John Glenn (D-OH) in 1984,[1] and on Capitol Hill before joining the firm founded by Bob Squier and William Knapp in 1993. She has been the top adviser to Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ),[2] including serving as the chief strategist for his presidential campaign, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). In 2004, Anita produced the media for Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX).[3] She was hired by then-Senator Barack Obama in 2006 to direct communications and strategy for his political action committee, The Hopefund. This move signaled to many that Obama was planning to run for the presidency. While advising Hopefund and Obama in 2006, she was instrumental in the preparations for the launch of Obama for America, and brought many key staffers to the Obama campaign with whom she had worked in Bayh's and Daschle's offices.
Obama campaign[link]
In April 2008, it was announced that Dunn, who had joined the Obama campaign in February, would be the director of communications, policy and research operations for Obama for America, where she held the title Senior Adviser and was one of the major decision makers of the Obama campaign. She was featured as one of four top advisers (along with David Axelrod, David Plouffe, and Robert Gibbs) in a 60 Minutes interview held after then President-elect Obama's November 4, 2008 victory speech at Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois. She was described, in the 60 Minutes interview, as, "a relative newcomer who handled communications, research and policy."[4] During the presidential transition of 2008-09, Dunn trained White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.[citation needed]
Controversies[link]
A veteran political operative, Dunn, as interim White House Communications Director, took the lead in the Obama administration's criticism of the Fox News Channel.[5] On Sunday, October 11, 2009, she appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources and was asked to clarify a statement she made to Time magazine regarding Fox News, "it's opinion journalism masquerading as news."[6] She responded by saying, "if you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest stories and biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN. The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."[7] She added, "And it's not ideological. Obviously, there are many commentators who have conservative, liberal, centrist, and everybody understands that. But I think what is fair to say about FOX and certainly the way we view it is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party."[8]
Following her statements, Fox News host Glenn Beck played on his show a portion of a speech Dunn gave at a high school graduation, during which she referenced Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa as two of her "favorite political philosophers."[9] Beck stated that the speech revealed Dunn as a Maoist, while Dunn stated that her reference was meant to be ironic, and was a quote borrowed from Republican strategist Lee Atwater.[10]
Dunn left her interim post at the end of November 2009 and was replaced by her deputy Dan Pfeiffer.[11]
Personal life[link]
Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, former partner at Perkins Coie and current personal counsel to President Obama and the White House Counsel.[12] Bauer has also been the general counsel of Obama for America since January 2007.[13][14] In 2008, Newsweek named Dunn and Bauer the new "power couple" in Washington, D.C.[15]
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ a b Horowitz, Jason (2009-10-14), "Profile of Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director", The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/14/AR2009101403850.html?hpid=moreheadlines, retrieved 2010-04-25
- ^ Cook, Dave (October 22, 2009). "Who is Anita Dunn?". The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1022/who-is-anita-dunn. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
- ^ Squier Knapp Dunn bio. Company Web site. Retrieved 2010-03-09.
- ^ "Obama's Inner Circle Shares Inside Story". CBS.
- ^ Horowitz, Jason. "Newly Out In Front for White House: An Ol' Pro: Interim Media Strategist Leads Salvo Against Fox", The Washington Post, 14 October 2009; accessed October 16, 2009
- ^ "Calling 'Em Out: The White House Takes on the Press"
- ^ "White House Escalates War of Words With Fox News". Fox News. 12 October 2009. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/12/white-house-escalates-war-words-fox-news/. Retrieved 2009-10-20.
- ^ "CNN Reliable Sources". CNN. 11 October 2009. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0910/11/rs.01.html. Retrieved 2009-11-01.
- ^ More complete quote from Dunn: "The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa — not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is: you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here's the deal: These are your choices, they are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, 'How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?' And Mao Zedong said, you know, 'You fight your war, and I'll fight mine.' And think about that for a second. You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war, you lay out your own path, you figure out what's right for you. You don't let external definition define how good you are internally, you fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path".
- ^ Malveaux, Suzanne; Hornick, Ed (16 October 2009). "Obama aide fires back at Beck over Mao remarks". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/16/beck.dunn/index.html. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
- ^ Cillizza, Chris (2009-11-10). "Dunn leaving White House, Pfeiffer takes over". Washington Post. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/white-house/dunn-leaving-white-house-pfeif.html?hpid=topnews. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
- ^ "After Months of Denials, Greg Craig Out As White House Counsel". abcnews.com. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/after-months-of-denials-greg-craig-out-as-white-house-counsel.html. Retrieved 2009-11-13.
- ^ "Anita Dunn". http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Anita_Dunn. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
- ^ "Bob Bauer". Washington Post Company. http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Bob_Bauer. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
- ^ "The D.C. Powers - Under Obama, there will be a new elite in Washington. Some of its members:", Newsweek, December 20, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/176312
External links[link]
|
Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Anita Dunn |
- Calmes, Jackie (December 20, 2008), "Power 2009: The New Lineup in Washington", Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/id/176312
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ellen Moran |
White House Director of Communications 2009 |
Succeeded by Daniel Pfeiffer |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dunn, Anita |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Anita_Dunn
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Anita Dunn
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Dunn
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
Chin Peng (Chinese: 陳平, Mandarin Chén Píng), former OBE[1], was born in 1924 as Ong Boon Hua (Chinese: 王文華, Pinyin Wáng Wén Huá) in Sitiawan and was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). A determined anti-colonialist, he led the party's guerrilla insurgency in the Malayan Emergency and beyond.
Contents |
Biography[link]
Early years[link]
Chin Peng was born in late October 1924, into a middle class Hokchia (hanyu pinyin: Fuqing) family in the small seaside town of Sitiawan, in Perak state, Malaya. His father had come to the town in 1920 and started a bicycle, tyre and spare motor parts business with the help of a relative from Singapore.[2] He attended a Chinese language school in Sitiawan. In 1937 he joined the Chinese Anti Enemy Backing Up Society (AEBUS), formed that year to send aid to China in response to Japan's aggression. According to Chin and Hack, he was not yet at that time a Communist.[3] He was in charge of anti-Japanese activities at his school. Initially a supporter of Sun Yat-sen, by early 1939 he had embraced communism. He planned to go to Yan'an, the renowned communist base in China, but was persuaded to remain in Malaya and take on heavier responsibilities for the Party there.
In late 1939, by which time Chin had completed his study up to Senior Middle One, his school announced that the Senior Middle section was to be closed due to lack of money. He chose to continue his education in the Methodist-run Anglo-Chinese Continuation School, which operated in English, because it provided a good cover for his underground activities and because it was local so he would not have to move to Singapore for schooling. However after six months he left the school "for fear of British harassment". [4] Once out of school, he concentrated on his political activities and became, from that point on, a full-time revolutionary. In January 1940 he had been put in charge of three anti-Japanese organisations that had a scope beyond the schools; they were for students, teachers, other cultural members and shop assistants. At the end of January, 1940, he was admitted to the Malayan Communist Party as a candidate member. [5]
Harassment by the authorities led him to leave his home town for Kuala Kangsar in July 1940. (This may be the same movement as his leaving school, referred to above.) Later he spent a month in Taiping. In September 1940 the party posted him to Ipoh as Standing Committee Member for Perak. In December he attained full Party membership.
In early 1941 AEBUS was dissolved. Chin Peng became Ipoh District Committee Member of the Party. "He led student underground cells of three Chinese secondary schools and the Party's organisations of the shop assistants, domestic servants of European families, workers at brick kilns and barbers." [5] In June 1941 he became a member of the Perak State Committee.
Rise to prominence[link]
Chin Peng rose to prominence during World War II when many Chinese Malayans took to the jungle to fight a guerrilla war against the Japanese. These fighters, inspired by the example of the Communist Party of China, became known as the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). Chin Peng became the liaison officer between the MPAJA and the British military in South-East Asia.
The Japanese invasion of Malaya began in December 1941. In 1942 Chin was the junior of three members of the Secretariat of the Perak State Committee: Su Yew Meng was secretary and Chang Meng Ching (hanyan pinyin: Zhang Ming Jin) was the other member. In early 1943 the two senior members were captured by the Japanese, which left Chin Peng in charge. Contact with the Party's Central Committee had been lost; he attempted to re-establish it, travelling to Kuala Lumpur and meeting Chai Ker Meng. Later Lai Tek, the Party leader, sent another Central Committee member, Lee Siow Peng (Siao Ping), to replace Chin as State Secretary. However, Lee Siow Peng was captured not long after, while travelling to a meeting that was to be held in Singapore.
It was thus that the job of establishing contact with the British commando Force 136 fell to Chin Peng. The first party of that force, consisting of Capt. John Newman and five Chinese agents, had been landed in Malaya on 24 May 1943, by submarine. Chin Peng made contact with this armed group on 30 September 1943. He was active in his support for the British stay-behind troops, but had no illusions about their failure to protect Malaya against the Japanese. In the course of this activity, he came into contact with Freddie Spencer Chapman, who called him a 'true friend' in his Malayan jungle memoir, 'The Jungle Is Neutral'.
In the course of the war, Chin was awarded an OBE (subsequently withdrawn by the British government), a mention in despatches and two campaign medals by Britain. He was elected the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Malaya after the betrayal of previous leader Lai Tek who turned out to be an agent for both the British and the Japanese and had denounced the leadership of the Party to the Japanese secret police. Chin Peng was the most senior surviving member.
The Emergency[link]
The Malayan colonial administration declared a state of emergency on 16 June 1948 after members of the Communist Party of Malaya killed three European plantation managers at Sungei Siput. The CPM was banned in July. Many Singaporean historians and anti-communists allege that Chin Peng ordered the killings. Chin Peng claims he had no prior knowledge. In fact, he says he was so unprepared for the start of hostility that he barely escaped arrest, losing his passport in the process and lost touch with the party for a couple of days.[6]
The resulting civil war became known as the Malayan Emergency which lasted for twelve years until 1960. Chin Peng withdrew to southern Thailand with the remnants of his forces during the latter part of the Emergency as a result of security force pressure and at the end of 1960 moved to Beijing, which became his base for many years. In 1960 he wished to give up the armed struggle, but was told by Deng Xiaoping that South-East Asia was ripe for Revolution.[citation needed] The CPM maintained a theoretical armed struggle for decades after.
The death toll climbed into the thousands. Those sympathetic to Chin Peng tend to portray the violence perpetrated by the CPM as defensive, while right-wing opponents tend to portray it as aggressive and unethical. Some have claimed the large number of civilian casualties was in contrast to the stance adopted by Mao Zedong and his policy of the Eight Points of Attention.
In 1970 the CPM's guerrilla bases in Thailand were convulsed by the trials and executions of supposed spies. Two breakaway factions were formed which condemned the purge. Chin Peng, who was then based in China, has denied involvement and later rehabilitated his accused comrades.[7]
The CPM laid down its arms in 1989. On December 2nd of that year, at the town of Had Yai in Southern Thailand, Chin Peng, Rashid Maidin and Abdullah CD met with representatives of the Malaysian and Thai governments. Separate peace agreements were signed between the MCP and both governments. One of the terms of the agreement was that MCP members of Malayan origin be allowed to return to live in Malaysia.
Application to return to Malaysia[link]
At the beginning of 2000, Chin Peng applied to be permitted to enter Malaysia. This was rejected by the High Court on July 25, 2005.
His return is opposed by victims of attacks committed by the Communist Party of Malaya, those who served in the armed forces during the Emergency and members of the public. There has been a resurgence of accounts of the alleged atrocities the Communist Party of Malaya committed in newspapers by those who oppose his return (such as the Ex-Servicemen's Association of Malaysia).
Chin Peng has lived in exile in southern Thailand and has also given lectures in the National University of Singapore.
The former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Badawi suggested the Government might reconsider its position in the future. He said he would wait for the outcome of the Court case before making a decision.
In June 2008, Chin Peng again lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that compelled him to show identification papers to prove his citizenship. Chin Peng maintained that his birth certificate was seized by the police during a raid in 1948. His counsel Raja Aziz Addruse had submitted before the Court of Appeal that it was wrong for the Malaysia government to compel him to produce the documents, because he was entitled to enter and live in Malaysia by virtue of the agreement.
His attempts to return to Malaysia received support by Pulau Pinang Gerakan Chaiman, Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan. Chin Peng has never expressed regret overseeing Communist Party of Malaya in their war against Malaysian government, in fact, is proud of it as written in his book, "Every generation shapes its dreams. But you pay for your dreams. We certainly paid for ours. I do not regret having fought for what I considered - and still consider a just cause." (Chin Peng, 2003:9)
Anwar Ibrahim who is PKR adviser has voiced support to allow Chin Peng to return to Malaysia.[8] His remark has been slammed by UMNO leaders who view it as "regrettable" [9] or even a plot to gain support of the Chinese community.[10]
Media portrayal[link]
In 2006, a documentary film about Chin Peng was made called The Last Communist. It was banned by Malaysia's Home Affairs Ministry.
Chronology[link]
- October 22, 1924: Birth.
- January 1940: Accepted as probationary member of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM); put in charge of Communist members in Sitiawan.
- July 4, 1940: Leaves home.
- December 1941: Communists’ offer of help accepted; joins the fight against the Japanese.
- January 10, 1942: The first batch of the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).
- 1942: Meets future wife, Khoon Wah.
- 1945: World War II ends.
- January 1946: Awarded 2 war medals; boycotts tour of British bases; forced to sign letter of apology.
- Mid-October 1946: In Penang, Yeung Kuo reveals that Lai Teck has betrayed the CPM; Lai Teck subsequently absconds with most of party’s money.
- March 6, 1947: MCP Central Executive Committee meeting held to deal with Lai Teck controversy; Lai Teck fails to appear and is never seen by MCP again. Later, Chin Peng is elected secretary-general of MCP.
- 1948: Three planters killed at Sungei Siput; Emergency declared; MCP declared illegal.
- Late 1950: Briggs arrives in Malaya and implements "Brigg's plan" – resettling people into "New Villages". If the people refused to move, the British would forcibly remove them and sometimes burn down their houses. This made it difficult for the Communists to gain food supplies from the "Min Yuen", their supporters in the villages.
- October 6, 1951: Sir Henry Gurney, British High Commissioner in Malaya, is assassinated on Gap road to Fraser's Hill by Siew Ma. It was a "chance" ambush by Siew Ma and his party and not a plan to assassinate Gurney.
- February 7, 1952: Sir Gerald Templer, arrives to take the place of Gurney, and implements harsh measures against the Communists.
- December 28, 1955: Baling Talks held with David Marshall and Tunku Abdul Rahman, unsuccessful because of surrender terms. After the Baling Talks, Chin Peng retires to Thailand. Ah Hai replaces him as acting Secretary-General in Malaya.
- 1960: The Emergency is officially declared at an end. However, fighting still continues. Special Malaysian government troops going by the name "Senoi Praaq" prove to be a thorn in Chin Peng's side.
- December 2, 1989: A peace treaty is signed between the communists, Thailand and Malaysia. The long, hard war the British had preferred to term an Emergency was over.
- October 6-8, 2004: Chin Peng visits Singapore for 3 days to speak at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (ISEAS).
- 2005: Chin Peng is pending to return to Malaysia. His hearing was scheduled for May 25, 2005, and the High Court postponed it to July 25, 2005. This application was subsequently rejected.
- June 2008: Chin Peng's lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal demanded he showed identification papers to prove his Malayan citizenship.
Reference Books[link]
- 劉鑒銓等人，青山不老－馬共的歷程，(2004)香港：明報出版社 ISBN 962-8871-28-5
- Chin, C. C., and Karl Hack. eds., Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party. (2004) Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004 ISBN 9971-69-287-2
Notes[link]
- ^ Dead or Alive,(Subscription required) TIME Magazine, May 12, 1952
- ^ C.C. Chin and Karl Hack, Dialogues with Chin Peng, pp. 3, 38.
- ^ Chin and Hack, p. 40.
- ^ Chin and Hack, p. 39.
- ^ a b Chin and Hack, p. 41.
- ^ Chin Peng, My Side of History, pp 215-222.
- ^ Chin Peng, My Side of History, pp 466-469,499.
- ^ Let Chin Peng return says Anwar - MySinchew 2009.06.13
- ^ Anwar’s stand on Chin Peng regrettable, says Hisham
- ^ 'Defending Chin Peng is Anwar's ploy'
Bibliography[link]
- Chin Peng, My Side of History (2003) ISBN 981-04-8693-6
- Ruslan of Malaysia: The Man Behind the Domino That Didn't Fall (2007) ISBN 978-0-9780562-0-9
External links[link]
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Chin Peng |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1924 |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Chin_Peng
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
