Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.

Coming across newly translated Marxist literature such as Thomas Kirkup's A History of Socialism Karl Kautsky's Karl Marx's Ökonomische Lehren and Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto he was further committed to communism. In October he returned to Shaoshan for his mother's funeral. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands perhaps millions periMao Zedongd in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.

Born the son of a wealthy farmer in Shaoshan Hunan Mao adopted a Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist outlook in early life particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. In 1966 he initiated the Cultural Revolution a program to weed out counter-revolutionary elements in Chinese society which continued until his death. Maoists furthermore promote his role as a theorist statesman poet and visionary who has inspired revolutionary movements across the globe.