Thoughts on Mao Zedong while in Beijing

We got a chance to visit Tiananmen Square as well as the Forbidden City which houses the body of the deceased Mao Zedong. The whole Beijing government and the city of Beijing pay homage to Mao in every way possible. There are huge murals throughout the city of Mao and he is held as the founder of the Communist Party in China. He is portrayed as this leader that brought China out of despair and saved the Chinese culture and brought economic and political stability to the country. Yet, while reading the text book I can’t help but feel as if Mao Zedong’s successes as the leader of China have grown since his death. Outside of a brief time at the beginning of his reign Mao Zedong stayed involved in political turmoil. He was constantly paranoid and believed that he was under siege by those with in his own party. In most cases there was proof behind his convictions of betrayal, but some of the problems stemmed from his own insecurities. He had a lot of people killed or put in jail while he was in power and simply did it to reaffirm his position as the leader of the communist party and China. He even led China into an economic downfall when he halted the progress of the Chinese education system trying to rid China of those that wanted to use the tools of education to make China a more prosperous nation. All Mao Zedong saw were ambitious leaders that threatened his control of the country. Even with all this Mao Zedong is still admired and honored by the Chinese people and held as the greatest leader in their history.