When China emerged from a half century of revolution as the world’s most populous nation and launched itself on a path of economic development and social change, Mao Mao Tse-tung occupied a critical place in the story of the country’s resurgence. To be sure, he did not play a dominant role throughout the whole struggle. In the early years of the Chinese Communist Party, he was a secondary figure, though by no means a negligible one, and even after the 1940s (except perhaps during the Cultural Revolution) the crucial decisions were not his alone. Nevertheless, looking at the whole period from the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 to Mao’s death in 1976, one can fairly regard Mao Zedong as the principal architect of the new China.