Mao Zedong
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Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist revolutionary, writer, political theorist and the founder of the People's Republic of China. He led China from the PRC's establishment in October 1949 until his deat
Formal portrait, 1950
Mao in 1913
Students in Beijing rallying during the May Fourth Movement
Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in March 1927. Mao is third from the right in the second row.
Sino-Soviet split
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The Sino-Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War. This was primarily caused by divergences that arose from the
Mao Zedong (left) and Nikita Khrushchev (right) in Beijing, 1957
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, 1945
The Sino-Soviet split initially arose in the late 1950s over the ideological divergence between Soviet leader Khrushchev's policies of De-Stalinisation and peaceful coexistence and Mao's affirmation of Stalinism and confrontation with the West. By the late 1970s, the positions were reversed; the New Cold War was beginning with the Soviet Union and the West in confrontation and China having achieved rapprochement with the United States.
A meeting of some Chinese and Soviet leaders in 1958. From left to right: Ye Jianying, Peng Dehuai, Nikolai Bulganin, and Nikita Khrushchev.