Fifty years after Mao Zedong's death, his image and ideas remain deeply embedded in China, where his portrait still dominates Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing and Communist Party rhetoric continues to draw on his thinking. For older Chinese people, revolutionary songs keep memories of his era alive, while younger generations see him as a more distant historical figure. Openly criticising his legacy, however, remains difficult.
Issued on: 09/09/2026 - 17:23
3 min Reading time
Mao died on 9 September 1976 after more than 25 years at the head of China. In Beijing, many retired people still gather in parks to sing revolutionary songs praising Mao, mixing nostalgia with patriotic fervour. “We love life, our motherland, our party, our army, our people and our magnificent landscapes. All these themes are present in the songs we sing,” Ding Yinan, who regularly joins the singing in one Beijing park, told RFI. Known as “red songs”, the revolutionary repertoire formed part of the childhood of many Chinese retirees. “When I have free time, I sing and it makes me happy,” Wang Liqun, who was born in the 1960s, said. “These songs give meaning to my life in retirement and help me stay positive.” How China’s Paracel expansion extends its military reach towards Vietnam Mao's enduring appeal For this generation, Mao retains his image as founder of the People's Republic of China, the leader credited with allowing the country to regain its sovereignty after a century of invasions and humiliations. “He left us so many things. Chairman Mao allowed our nation to stand up, he freed the working masses and the suffering people. We stood up again,” Ding said, echoing almost word for word the account promoted by the Communist Party. That heroic memory largely leaves aside the famines of the Great Leap Forward and the violence of the Cultural Revolution. Revolutionary songs also carry a political message in which individual lives are inseparable from China's collective strength. That idea remains prominent in Communist Party rhetoric and among Chinese people such as Wang. “Only China, this great family, can support each one of us,” he said. “Without China's great happiness, without the motherland's great happiness, how could there be small individual joys in China?” The EU has new anti-Beijing instruments, but will China have to face the music? Famine and political chaos Mao's rule also brought mass purges during the Cultural Revolution, burned books, lynched teachers and 10 years of political chaos. His Great Leap Forward and the failure of his economic policies led to a famine that killed 40 million people. “He is a complex figure. He is both the Lenin and the Stalin of the People's Republic of China,” Jean-Philippe Béja, an expert on China and retired senior researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France's main public research body, told RFI. “He is both the founder of the people's republic, but also the person who committed very, very serious... well, they're called mistakes. We could call them crimes.” Those episodes now carry less weight than the founding myth surrounding Mao. His wavering voice proclaiming the People's Republic of China in 1949 occupies a central place in the history of both China and the Communist Party. For younger Chinese people, Mao has become a more distant historical figure, but one still treated with respect. “He is a great man, the founder of new China,” one young man told RFI. “Times change, but the ideas he left behind can serve as a reference for dealing with certain situations in future.” France and Germany move to tackle EU’s growing trade deficit with China Risks of criticism Mao's place at the centre of Communist China's founding story makes public criticism of his record difficult. “Anyone who dares to criticise him publicly now risks serious trouble, risks disappearing and risks being sentenced to prison,” Béja said. Artist Gao Zhen is one example. He made caricatures in the early 2000s depicting Mao as a woman or on his knees begging for forgiveness. Gao was recently sentenced to three years in prison. This article was adapted from the original version in French by Clea Broadhurst
