In 1949 the Communist leader Mao Zedong stood on the Tiananmen gate of the Forbidden City, former home of the emperors in Beijing, and announced the formation of the People’s Republic of China: ‘The Chinese people,’ he declared, ‘have finally stood up’. Despite his rhetoric, as he spoke Mao knew that the creation of a new state did not mean that the Communists controlled China.
After years of humiliation by Western powers, invasion by the Japanese, and civil war, China was ruined, bankrupt and chaotic. Parts of the country suffered famine while an estimated 1 million bandits roamed the countryside. ‘The task facing Mao,’ writes historian J. A. G. Roberts, ‘was truly herculean.’ Mao’s solution to his problems could be found in his infamous declaration that ‘All political power lies in the barrel of a gun’. Only the gun, representing his military force, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), could enable him to consolidate his power:
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