Mao Zedong was born in a small village named Shaosan, (Music Mountain) in Dec. His family name Mao means, "hair" and his given name Zedong means "Anoint the East." As a leader, his anointing of the East left an odd birthmark on China's politics and her people. That mark later transformed into a scar which will never leave Chinas history. Terrill constantly refers to the duplicity that controlled Mao's personality, the monkey and tiger, Terrill calls it. Resembling a yin and yang that is deeply embedded in Chinese thought. This balance which is professed in one of his maxims " walk on two legs ," born enlightenment through the gun.
Terrill aims to the mark of China's political instability and fractured regional warlord regimes that controlled them, as the springboard that Mao needed to complete the recipe for revolution. During 1911 Sun Yat-sen was the leader of the Chinese nationalist party and in control of the south. General Yuan had control of the north. This same year a revolution carried out by Sun led to a treaty between north and south which expelled the current Manchu emperor and placed General Yuan as president of the new Republic of China in 1912. During this time Mao was a young student interested in politics. He joined Sun's nationalist army for a short stint of six months. .
Mao then went to college and finally after some strange times there he graduated. He spent a lot of time in Changsha's library where he studied economics and the writings of a revolutionary from the west, Karl Marx's and Communism. There he met other intellectuals of radical communist thought who helped form the Chinese Communist Party. On May 4, 1918 there was a demonstration of people against the western form of government, and for the new radical Marxist Communism. Later referred to as the May fourth incident it set the ball rolling for Mao and the CCP.
Mao soon became a full time Party worker.
