Mao And Napoleon

Superior Essays
Mao’s China and Relations to Animal Farm

A century ago, many parts of the world were suffering from atrocities in their country. In this essay, I will be talking about Mao Zedong’s time in China and I will be relating it to animal farm. I believe that both Mao and Napoleon had shown ways of totalitarianism, and I will be talking about their decisions that led to that.

Mao’s Upbringing:

As a child, Mao was born in a village called Shaoshan. His family were peasants, and the environment he grew up in, education was valued only for training for keeping records and accounts. When he was in his primary school days, some of his heroes were George Washington, Napoleon I, and great warrior emperors in china. At the age of 13, Mao was forced
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Later, Mao returned back to his home village. He saw peasants being shot by foreign police. Even though he was born as a peasant, over the years, he adopted the idea that peasants were dirty. Mao didn’t like the idea of peasantry, and wanted the peasants to get out of it.

When you look at the early times in Mao’s life, there are several similarities with the Animal farm (“AF”) story. The upbringing of Mao relates to how slowly Napoleon in AF got to power. For an example, they both did good things to the community to get more people to like them. Another example is that Mao and Napoleon were once peasants, but they both grew to be dictators.

Mao had shown a many aspects of totalitarianism during his reign in China. Some of his actions which represented totalitarianism were the Great Leap Forward, Red Guards, the People's Daily, and the Execution of landlords.

The Great Leap Forward:

The main goal of The Great Leap Forward was to modernise China in agriculture and industry. He did this by reforming China into a series of communes. The families in the communes had to get rid of all their possessions, so what ever they have is owned by the the commune. The people's lives were basically owned by the commune, and they were provided healthcare, schools, nurseries, and other necessities so that the parents can work for the commune. All the necessities for life was provided by the commune, and for a while, production
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During the first time the windmill was made, everything was working great, until the windmill broke down. Years of work from the animals had been wasted, and Napoleon ordered it to be built again. Then, after the second windmill was made, they were attacked and suffered many losses. This shows that both, Napoleon and Mao, didn’t think their plans fully through, leading into lots of death and failure.

Red Guards:

The Red Guards militant university and high school students formed as units for the Cultural Revolution. They eliminated all remnants of the old culture in China. According to (3) Red Guards also attacked school teachers and school officials, and other intellectuals who had a traditional view. This, of course, led to many people dieing. Soon, Red Guards were going out of control, attacking each other and overthrowing existing party authorities. Eventually, the Chinese military was called to bring back order throughout the country. Because of this, the Red Guards lost most of their power.

In AF, the Red Guards were the dogs. Whenever someone opposed Napoleon or upfronted to Napoleon they were doing something secretly wrong, they were executed. This was very similar to what the Red Guards did to intellectuals who had a traditional

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