Yesterday, September 9th marked the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death. In Shaoshan, Hunan, a large number of “Mao fans” gathered for a commemoration. Several state-run media outlets simultaneously published articles praising Mao. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping emulating Mao Zedong, and the phenomenon of Mao worship among young people have attracted external attention. Experts state that due to the unchanged totalitarian regime established by communist ideology, the Cultural Revolution has never truly ended. It’s deemed as a desperate choice for Chinese youths to play the Mao Zedong card, yet it is utterly absurd.
According to the report by the Hong Kong-based Ming Pao, starting from the 8th, a large number of Mao fans gathered at Mao Zedong Statue Square in Shaoshan, some carrying Mao Zedong portraits, red flags with slogans, and banners. Some dressed in Red Guard attire, traveled from places like Chengdu to Shaoshan, with this practice becoming a tradition over the years.
State-run newspaper “Jiefang Daily” reported that after the flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing yesterday morning, there was a long line at the entrance of Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. The crowd included both elderly individuals and those from the post-90s and post-2000s generations. Multiple state media outlets concurrently published articles praising Mao.
Reuters pointed out that Mao Zedong’s shadow still lingers over China to this day. Current CCP leader Xi Jinping reintroduced some elements from the Mao era and combined them with strong nationalism. Despite Xi Jinping and his family being persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, he believes that the CCP needs a clear socialist roadmap.
Canadian writer and senior commentator Sheng Xue criticized this adulation phenomenon: “Many people go to Mao Zedong’s hometown to pay respects. This is an extremely tragic phenomenon. Mao Zedong was a heinous figure in human history, causing the largest scale and quantity of casualties in human history during his reign. Yet he is still revered and glorified by many. Of course, under authoritarian environments, the vast majority can only think within the boundaries set by the CCP.”
She told The Epoch Times that in the face of political turmoil, economic downturn, and declining employment rates, with young people having no hope for the future, “the only reference point they can compare to is surprisingly the era of Mao Zedong.” Under Mao’s era, the state controlled the basic needs of urban residents in a national systematic way, resulting in relative equality among the poor. In today’s context of vast social stratification, some people nostalgically long for that past: “The Chinese people have no way to move forward, and the only exit now is to move backward. This is precisely what Xi Jinping has caused.”
In 1981, during the 6th Plenary Session of the 11th CCP Central Committee, the resolution on several historical issues since the founding of the Party was adopted, presided over by Deng Xiaoping. Mao Zedong was evaluated with a “balance of achievements and mistakes,” the so-called “three-sevenths open” – seven parts achievements, three parts errors. Since then, Mao Zedong’s image faded, official propaganda promoting personal worship reduced, and the CCP no longer celebrates the birthdays of living leaders.
However, since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he has consistently advocated not to negate the Mao era by the standards of the reform and opening-up era, and increasingly revived some practices of the Mao era.
One of the key lessons from Mao Zedong in his later years, as summarized by the CCP itself, was excessive concentration of power and personality cult. However, in the era of Xi Jinping, the term limit for the President was abolished in 2018, emphasizing the “core” and centralized leadership further, formally incorporating an ideology bearing his name into the Party Constitution and the Constitution.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the initiation of the “Cultural Revolution” by Mao Zedong. In 2021, the Xi Jinping administration’s narrative on the 30 years from the establishment of the government to the end of the Cultural Revolution changed to: although it was “full of difficulties and even major setbacks,” overall the “achievements are remarkable.” In December 2023, Xi Jinping led officials to the memorial hall to grandly praise Mao on Mao’s memorial day. In March 2024, Xi again visited Mao’s alma mater in Hunan.
Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, analyzed that after the Cultural Revolution, both inside and outside the system there was a strong “repudiation of Mao” movement because so many people suffered, and they deeply resented Mao, hence they sought a thorough denunciation of Mao. However, the flaw in the 1981 resolution was that it was not genuine history but a political conclusion. Whether it was Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, left or right, they couldn’t detach themselves from Mao. Once they denounced Mao completely, and critiqued Mao thoroughly, the CCP’s foundation would be unstable, affecting its legitimacy, leading to a loss of power. The “three-sevenths open” view towards Mao is a ridiculous conclusion, thousands of miles away from historical truth. Feng pointed out that authoritarian regimes are characterized by personality cults and leader dictatorships. Whether appearing in a right-wing guise like Hitler’s Nazi Germany or in a left-wing guise like Stalin’s Soviet Union, China’s Mao Zedong, or a bunch of communist countries including Castro’s Cuba and Ceausescu’s Romania, all belong to the same category.
Feng mentioned that after the reform and opening-up of the CCP, market economy and external ideological influences entered China, awakening the entire society. While the civil society is temporarily suppressed, it still widely exists and has close ties with overseas connections, posing challenges for the CCP. The Red Second Generation, in order to preserve its power, is promoting the restoration of totalitarianism. Xi Jinping is being hailed to exercise power similar to Mao’s. Feng described what Xi Jinping is doing now as representing the hardline faction within the party, attempting to return to the ways of Mao in order to safeguard the regime, which not only goes against the historical development trend but also contradicts the interests and wishes of all Chinese people collectively.
Sheng Xue also believes that the CCP cannot truly negate Mao: “If the CCP wants to settle with Mao Zedong, it would mean admitting that the CCP should be redefined as a criminal group or a terrorist group from the beginning of its establishment.”
She argues that the official blame on the failure of the Mao era mainly on excessive concentration of power and personality cult is a superficial explanation. The crux lies in the authoritarian regime established by communist ideology. Today, Xi Jinping not only learns from Mao but also aims to surpass him, where the two most critical foundations of his ideology and values are Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution.
Sheng explained: “Mao Zedong can indeed be regarded as a leader of the third world in Asia and Africa. Now, Xi Jinping wants to become a leader of the entire world, so when he took office, he launched the concept of ‘the community of shared future for mankind.’ Even after suffering a significant setback, he still said, ‘the world is big enough for both China and the United States to develop together,’ because he hit a wall on challenging the United States, so he backed down.”
Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics of China show that in July 2026, the urban youth unemployment rate (excluding students) aged 16 to 24 has reached a new high of 17.9% after adjustment. In recent years, issues such as the wealth gap, class stratification, internal rotation, and lying flat have become common topics among young people in China, ultimately leading some individuals to show interest in reading books about Mao Zedong.
When Chinese youths bring up Mao Zedong, they are often seen by outsiders as seizing the moment to criticize the authorities using Mao Zedong’s language of “anti-bureaucracy, anti-privilege, and empowering the workers and peasants.” They are indeed being suppressed.
In 2018, following the Jasic Workers’ Rights incident in Shenzhen, the leftist youth supporting the workers of the “Jasic Support Group” faced suppression. Subsequently, universities comprehensively purged campus leftist groups, and the Marxist Society of Peking University was forcibly reorganized. In December of the same year, Zhan Zhenzhen, a student at the School of Life Sciences at Peking University and a leftist activist, traveled to Changsha, Hunan to participate in Mao’s birth anniversary event, only to be arrested by the police and later expelled from school on the grounds of “unjustified absence.”
Platforms like Bilibili (B站) frequented by young people host numerous videos related to Mao Zedong. In a BBC interview, a youth about to enter university could easily discuss Mao Zedong, but hesitated when the conversation shifted to Xi Jinping, saying, “That’s not something I can talk about easily.” The report suggests that in Chinese cyberspace, topics that truly touch the top levels are often self-avoided.
Feng Chongyi believes that young people resorting to Mao is “a very desperate choice.” Many protests in Chinese society are repressed. “The Internet, along with the social credit system, digital tools, are fully utilized by the Communist Party. They cannot effectively resist, so they use Mao, ‘displaying the red flag against the red flag.'”
He said, “You stand against the CCP but use the demon banner of the CCP to oppose it, which is ridiculous. Why not talk about democracy and freedom? Instead, waving the flag of Mao—it’s self-contradictory.”
Sheng Xue pointed out that the absurdity and tragedy of these Chinese youths stem from their lack of modern citizen resistance resources based on universal values, human rights, rule of law, and freedom. “They don’t understand what a citizen should be, what values they should hold. Therefore, they can only embrace the class struggle, brutal rectification, and violent power seizures advocated by the era of Mao Zedong. Because within the tolerable boundaries set by the CCP, only these concepts exist. Young people also know that this approach cannot bring change, it can only serve as a personal outlet.”
Sheng emphasized: “The Cultural Revolution has never truly ended. The so-called 1981 historical resolution was not a reflection or conclusion on the Cultural Revolution but a disguise the CCP used as a form of self-rescue when the country was in extreme chaos and on the brink of economic collapse. Deng Xiaoping never truly repudiated the Cultural Revolution; he only negated that form, that tumultuous atmosphere driven by the masses rising and challenging the privileged. In fact, the Cultural Revolution has persisted through the entire authoritarian regime structure, tools of oppression, and the entire ideology, including the ‘Four Upholds’ in the 1982 Constitution are completely consistent with the political system the CCP initially established.”
She believes that the CCP’s reform and opening-up have been false from beginning to end, merely relaxing people’s hands and feet economically to create wealth. The most significant portion of this wealth is used to bolster the power of the CCP state.
Feng Chongyi stated that during the Mao era, personality worship was largely due to ignorance and stupidity, as people believed they were building a paradise. Those in the CCP’s high ranks today experienced the Anti-Rightist Movement, Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, and know that personality worship and leader dictatorship are “very dirty, very evil, and very malicious,” yet they pursue it to consolidate their power. “In this sense, they are worse than before.”