Why Do We Commemorate Mao Zedong?

September 8, 2025

Liu Jiming
Contemporary Chinese Writer, Vice Chairman of Hubei Writers' Association

Note: This article is compiled from a speech at the Wuhan Red Song Society's mass rally commemorating the 45th anniversary of Chairman Mao's passing, originally published on Utopia Website.

Beginning roughly in the early 1990s, every September 9th and December 26th, from Beijing's Chairman Mao Memorial Hall to Chairman Mao's hometown Shaoshan in Hunan, from south to north, from east to west, people in many places across China commemorate Chairman Mao in various forms, gradually forming a continuous "Mao Zedong fever" that persists to this day, with ever-growing and deepening influence. In recent years, some have suggested naming December 26th "Mao Birthday Festival" or "People's Festival," receiving widespread response among the masses. That so many ordinary people spontaneously commemorate and remember a national leader and party chief decades after his death, even evolving this into a folk festival, is an extremely rare phenomenon in history, both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign.

This makes me think of a question: Why do we commemorate Chairman Mao? I believe it's first an emotional need. For many people who lived through the Mao Zedong era, their feelings toward Chairman Mao far exceed ordinary support and worship for political leaders—it's like feelings toward a deceased ancestor or family member, as one song goes, "Chairman Mao is one of our commune's people." When Chairman Mao died forty-five years ago, I was only fourteen. I remember the Central People's Broadcasting Station's obituary, after listing the party and state leadership positions Chairman Mao held and calling him "the great leader beloved by our party, our army, and people of all nationalities," also included: "great teacher of the international proletariat and oppressed nations and peoples." This shows Chairman Mao was not only China's party and state leader but, like Marx, Engels, and Lenin, a revolutionary teacher for the world's proletariat and working people. This is the fundamental difference between him and all politicians in Chinese and foreign history.

When we say Chairman Mao was the people's leader, this is first embodied in his lifelong struggle for the Chinese people's liberation cause and world communist movement. After New China's founding, he branded all party and government institutions with the people's mark: People's Government, People's Committee, People's Bank, People's Public Security, People's Court, People's Police, People's Teachers, People's Army. His "Serve the People," written in Yan'an commemorating Eighth Route Army soldier Zhang Side, is still regarded as the Chinese Communist Party's purpose. In Mao Zedong's dictionary, "people" was a sacred concept. For example: "Stand on the side of the greatest majority of working people," "The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history," "The masses are the real heroes," "The lowly are most intelligent; the elite are most ignorant," "Spring winds bring ten thousand willows swaying, six hundred million in all our lands are Yao and Shun" [note: legendary sage kings], and so on.

Chairman Mao not only said this but did this. From New China's founding until his death, during those 27 years, he not only established a universal welfare system with basically free education, healthcare, medical care, and housing, giving workers and peasants—who comprised the population's vast majority—economic equality, but also granted people the political right to supervise cadres and government. In 1975, he even wrote marches, demonstrations, and the "four bigs" [note: speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates, writing big-character posters] into the newly revised Constitution of the People's Republic of China. China in Mao Zedong's era was truly a great era when people were masters of their country. All this fully demonstrates that Chairman Mao always stood with the greatest majority of people and was a well-deserved people's leader.

Those who still respect, love, commemorate, and remember Chairman Mao today are precisely the workers, peasants, and broad laborers who enjoyed socialism's "sunshine and rain" during the Mao Zedong era—the very "people and masses" Chairman Mao cared about throughout his life.

Chairman Mao said: "There is no love or hatred in this world without reason or cause." So who are those who hate him? Some have analyzed that there are mainly these categories: first, landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists who were suppressed or punished during Mao's era [note: the "five black categories" of the Cultural Revolution]; second, Kuomintang remnants overthrown by the Communist Party and their descendants; third, corrupt officials; fourth, vested interest groups including capitalists and intellectual elites after reform and opening up.

This summary is generally accurate. I have three classmate groups: one is a middle school group whose members are mostly farmers and laid-off workers at society's bottom—what people commonly call "vulnerable groups." The other two are university and Lu Xun Literary Institute classmate groups, mostly intellectuals, literati, or early-wealth groups—the so-called elite class. This morning I checked—except for the middle school group, neither of the other two had a single post commemorating Chairman Mao. Yet at this very moment, the tide of commemorating Chairman Mao is unfolding across China and online like wildfire, overwhelming and extensive. Let me read you a post from the middle school classmates group:

"Forty-five years ago, you worried about the people; for forty-five years, the people have been worrying about you.

You wielded power over the world, yet wore patched clothes all your life! A piece of braised pork became your greatest luxury. Living simply, saving every bit, your local accent unchanged... countless such examples! I seem to smell your whole-body 'country bumpkin farmer' aroma! You were kind like a father, yet punished evildoers until they trembled with fear! But you thought day and night about suffering masses under heaven.

You sacrificed six family members for human liberation—let the vast sky dance for loyal souls;

You devoted your life to eliminating wealth gaps, treating suffering masses as family, wanting to fill the world with flowers of equality and happiness.

You sought ways out for national rise, turning Marx's 'armchair theorizing' into reality. Unwavering determination, wholehearted devotion, you built a new socialist edifice.

Your 'paper tiger,' 'three worlds,' 'oppressed peoples of the world unite'—helping trapped oppressed peoples and exploited classes worldwide, setting barriers for capitalism!

Don't speak of Christ, Buddhism, or Confucianism, much less saints and myths; one article 'Serve the People' explained those in power's essence so clearly and thoroughly. One phrase 'Long live the people'—you had people in your heart. This is your thinking, your mind, your eternity...!

With work unfinished, who will guard the nation? At your final moment, it was deep concern for your beloved people, while also seeing through some people's selfishness and evil.

You were the world's loneliest person—no one could understand your foresight, including comrades beside you and us behind you!

In turbulent times, you grasped direction in rushing currents; when dark clouds gathered, your brilliance shone even brighter.

Time leaves traces, people haven't forgotten you for a moment; at this moment, what I'm pouring out isn't words but tears... I can barely continue writing!

Your memorial day approaches—earth speechless, sun radiant; high heaven silent, who will answer? I haven't written an inscription for you because my words carry little weight. I want to write an annual memorial because I don't want to sink into despair. I didn't mention your name—everyone knows it's you! I didn't speak of your greatness—everyone knows your incomparable greatness!!!

May tears become autumn morning dew, nourishing every seedling..."

The classmate who posted this is an ordinary farmer. This post certainly wasn't written by him personally—it was shared from online—but undoubtedly represents his feelings. Just like everyone here participating in memorial activities at this moment, all hold simple gratitude and nostalgia for a leader who died forty-five years ago. We're not merely remembering a leader but reminiscing about that era when people were masters, that passionate, burning red age. So for every worker and peasant who lived through Mao's era, remembering Chairman Mao means remembering the glorious years working people once had, remembering their "lost paradise."

Let me read another post:

"From elders' mouths, worshipping you; as a youth, questioning you amid enemies' slander; as a young adult, admiring you through society's exploration. Though never meeting you face to face, having intimate conversations with you in certain deep nights. You are Zhang Muzhi bringing fairness to Goose City [note: reference to the film "Let the Bullets Fly"], also Zhang Mazi whom Huang Silang and others hate. Searching through genealogies, finding no trace of privilege; turning away with sleeves flicked, leaving behind a China. People say you live ten thousand years, you say people live ten thousand years."

This post was obviously from a young person. These few words reflect the awakening process of a generation long brainwashed by public intellectuals and elites who, after experiencing brutal capital exploitation, begin to re-recognize Chairman Mao and socialism, expressing still a simple emotion.

This is what I mean by the first reason—remembering Chairman Mao is our own emotional need. Beyond this, there's a second reason: the need for real struggle.

Everyone knows that in the forty-five years since Chairman Mao's death, the five types of people I listed earlier, to vent their class hatred, have spared no effort in spreading rumors, smearing, and slandering, pouring countless buckets of dirty water on Chairman Mao. Lenin once said: "During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the 'consolation' of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it." Lenin was addressing the treatment Marx and his theories experienced, but the same drama has occurred with Chairman Mao, even worse than what Marx endured.

Therefore, when we commemorate Chairman Mao today, we must resolutely struggle against all anti-Mao elements and the forces they represent. This struggle isn't just to maintain Chairman Mao's great image but to defend his thought and continue his unfinished cause. We now hear the word "original aspiration" daily in newspapers and broadcasts. What is original aspiration? I believe just talking about national rejuvenation isn't enough or complete. Eliminating exploitative and oppressive social systems was the oath and solemn promise to the people made by the Communist Party's founding and Chairman Mao and other elder proletarian revolutionaries when they devoted themselves to revolution—this is our party's true "original aspiration" we should remember.

Famous jurist and Peking University Professor Feng Xiang once said: "As long as Mao Zedong's portrait still hangs high over Tiananmen Square, all actions resisting social unfairness and injustice are naturally legitimate, requiring no legal recognition, no elite consent, because this is Mao Zedong's agreement with the people, also the spirit of the 1949 revolution, the reason New China is New China—this is New China's highest constitutional principle." This expresses an important concept: Chairman Mao is the "five-in-one" embodiment of the Chinese Communist Party, People's Republic of China, People's Liberation Army, socialist system, and communist ideals. In other words, defending Chairman Mao means defending the Chinese Communist Party, People's Republic of China, and socialist system. So in this sense, commemorating Chairman Mao is both an emotional need and a responsibility and mission.

In his great life fighting for China's proletariat and working people's liberation, Chairman Mao was most combative. He said: "Fighting with Heaven is endless joy, fighting with Earth is endless joy, fighting with people is endless joy." "Where there is oppression, there is resistance." "It is right to rebel!" "Only heroes can drive away tigers and leopards, no brave men fear bears." "The golden monkey wrathfully swung his massive cudgel, and the jade firmament was cleared of dust." In his later years, to prevent capitalist restoration in China, he risked being "smashed to pieces," willing to break the state machine he'd created, launching the unprecedented Cultural Revolution. In 1958, talking with People's Daily director Wu Lengxi, he proposed the famous "five fearlessnesses": "A Communist Party member must withstand wrong punishment—first, not fear dismissal from office; second, not fear expulsion from the party; third, not fear his wife divorcing him; fourth, not fear imprisonment; fifth, not fear execution. With these five fearlessnesses prepared, one dares seek truth from facts and persist in truth."

Speaking of fighting spirit, elder revolutionaries set the best examples for us. Take the famous revolutionary writer Wei Wei—to defend scientific socialist principles, he not only suffered house arrest and was vilified as "ultra-left" but was long banished by mainstream literary circles. But he never compromised or retreated. In "On the Threshold of the New Century," he wrote: "Workers and peasants who have tasted socialism's sweetness and become the nation's masters, as their master status is lost and life deteriorates, facing survival threats, won't remain silent long. Those conscious Communists deeply educated in Marxism-Leninism will inevitably regroup their strength, strongly unite again, lead the people and masses in resolute struggle against bourgeois agents. The new century will still be a century of difficult struggle, also a century of renewed world revolutionary climax. Let us bravely welcome this hopeful century!" He left the deathbed words "Continue revolution, never surrender."

More recently, there's the late Hubei provincial leader Li Erzhong, also a model of not forgetting original aspirations and continuing revolution. In "To Revolutionary Youth," he pointed out sharply: "Revisionists always think rising production indices are good, not knowing that rising production indices, if representing private ownership rise, indicate capitalist development, running counter to socialism and aimed at eliminating socialism. Not asking whether it's capitalist or socialist, prioritizing development above all—this is the cause of today's serious consequences."

There's also veteran New Fourth Army soldier Gu Lao participating in today's memorial activities. Like Wei Wei and Li Erzhong, Gu Lao is also a model of "continue revolution, never surrender." At over ninety, he still persistently struggles against various anti-Mao, anti-Communist, anti-socialist forces. Two years ago, he was even sued for criticizing Fang Fang's "Soft Burial" [note: controversial novel]. Gu Lao angrily said: Communist Party members defending the Communist Party are cursed as "bringing disaster to country and people" by anti-Communist literati—truly the landlord restoration corps has returned! In recent years, I've also received party disciplinary action more than once for struggling against people like Fang Fang, so I deeply empathize with Gu Lao's experience.

These shocking phenomena precisely illustrate struggle's severity and necessity, also demonstrating the realistic significance of commemorating Chairman Mao. If we merely stop at the emotional level of praising and remembering Chairman Mao without promoting his fighting spirit, inheriting his brilliant thought, and advancing socialist cause, workers, peasants, and broad working people will be pressed down to suffer long-term exploitation by capital and power elites, with ninety-nine percent forever becoming slaves and "leeks" awaiting harvest by one percent. If so, we'd not only fail countless revolutionary martyrs who sacrificed for New China and socialist system establishment but also disappoint Chairman Mao's earnest teachings and ardent expectations.

Over ten years ago, when interviewed by a German scholar who asked how I evaluated Mao Zedong, I answered: "For most ordinary people, Mao Zedong is a great liberator and tireless teacher, while for a few elites, he's an inescapable nightmare." In today's China, attitudes toward Chairman Mao not only test a person's conscience but serve as a touchstone for testing the Chinese Communist Party.

Finally, let us revisit a passage from "The Communist Manifesto":

"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!"