By: Sarah Fortner and Danielle Villeneuve
MAO ZEDONG
PAPER 2 QUESTION
Compare and contrast how the status of women
and minorities changed in Nazi Germany to
another single party state.
EARLY YEARS
Born outside of the Shaoshan village in 1893
(Stewart 11)
 Mao’s father, Mao Rensheng, was a prosperous
rice farmer and was depending on his son to keep
the business going. (Stewart 11)
 Spent the majority of his childhood working on
his family's farm, attending school intermittently
until the age of thirteen, when he joined his father
full time in farm work (Brown)
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EARLY YEARS
Grain shortages in 1910 cause poor peasants
to steal grain from Mao’s father. Mao realizes
how little power peasants. (Stewart 18)
 At age 14, Mao’s father arranged a marriage
for him. Mao never accepts this marriage (Mao
Tse-tung Biography)
 When he was 17, Mao left home to enroll in a
secondary school in Changsha, the capital of
Hunan Province. (Mao Tse-tung Biography)
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RISE TO POWER
When Mao went to college he got involved in
many political activities and began to investigate
more about different political ideologies and
philosophy . (Szczepanski)
 In 1918, Mao Tse-tung graduated as a certified
teacher. (Mao Tse-tung Biography)
 Mao then travels to Beijing and was then
introduced to Marxism while working in the library
of Peking University. (Szczepanski)
 In 1921 he helped found the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). (Brown)

RISE TO POWER
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He rose up through the ranks of the party as a delegate assemblyman
and then executive to the Shanghai branch of the party. (Mao Tse-tung
Biography)
After his strong military leadership in the Long March, Mao was
elected to the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest policy-making
committee in the CCP. (Stewart 45)
In July 1937, the Japanese invaded China, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to
flee the capital in Nanking. Mao Mao established himself as a military
leader and helped fight off the Japanese. (Mao Tse-tung Biography)
With the Japanese defeat in 1945, Mao Tse-tung was able to set his
sights on controlling all of China. On October 1, 1949 Mao announced
the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. (Mao Tse-tung
Biography)
MAO’S POLICIES:
TREATMENT OF WOMEN
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Ban on prostitution in 1949
Mao set out to put an end to arranged marriages, the selling of wives, and the
abusive treatment of women. Marriage Law of 1950 is created. (Deluca 48)
Mao believed that "genuine equality between the sexes" could be achieved
only through a complete "socialist transformation of society," in which women
were allowed "to own property, use their own names, sue for divorce," and
enter professions. (Deluca 48)
Mao regarded women as a "vast reserve of labor power,“ and embraced
principle of equal pay for equal work. (Deluca 48)
Mao sought to weaken the traditional bonds of the family as a means of
modernizing the Chinese economy and encouraging greater geographical and
social mobility within the workforce. (Deluca 48)
He would later use his ideas on women and social justice to ban infanticide,
foot binding and update conditions in Chinese factories by providing women
with access to free medical care and nurseries for their children. (Deluca 48)
MAO’S POLICIES:
TREATMENT OF MINORITIES
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1949-1953 Mass executions of landlords and other “rightists,” more
than 1 million likely killed. (Szczepanski)
Three-Antis (1951) & Mao’s political opponents were targeted. FiveAntis (1952)- Chinese capitalists, especially rich capitalists targeted.
Hundreds of thousands dead by suicide or execution (Szczepanski)
Hundred Flower’s Campaign of 1957: Mao encourages criticism of
government (trick to root out critics) (Szczepanski). Opponents went
through "psychologically tortuous ordeal" to make amends for their
“errors”. (Deluca 48)
1957- 1959 Anti-Rightist Campaign: some 500,000 or more
government critics re-educated through labor or shot. (Szczepanski).
1966-1976 Cultural Revolution: Chinese teachers and intellectuals
denounced and persecuted. Terrorized by Red Guard. (Cultural
Revolution)
HITLER’S POLICIES:
TREATMENT OF WOMEN
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Hitler wanted to have women become domestic wives, that stay at home,
have a family and the husband would be the dominant one in the
household who made the money to support the family (Spartacus).
“In 1933 Hitler appointed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as Reich Women's Leader
and head of the Nazi Women's League.” Gertrud was to promote male
superiority and that it was important for women to bear children
(Spartacus).
From “1934 and from June 1936 women could no longer act as judges or
public prosecutors” because Hitler wanted to prevent women from working
in professional jobs. He also ordered most women out of the workforce, so
that men could be the sole providers (Spartacus)
“In the year before the Nazis came to power there were 18,315 women
students in Germany's universities. By 1939 this number had fallen to
5,447” (Spartacus)
Hitler’s anti-feminism turned women to left wing parties, forcing Hitler to
create the first concentration camp for women in 1933 then two other
concentration camps later while he was still in power. (Spartacus)
HITLER’S POLICIES:
TREATMENT OF MINORITIES
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Hitler’s goal was to eliminate all undesirables from Germany to
create the perfect Aryan race, such as; Jews, gypsies, the disabled,
homosexuals, etc. (Uahsibhistory)
Hitler created the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which took away
citizenship from Jews and instated racial hierarchy (Uahsibhistory)
Hitler wanted to control all massacres of Jews and minorites under
the state so he established the Kristallnacht in 1938. Uahsibhistory)
Many concentration camps were thus created to eliminate the
population of undesirables, most of the time these concentration
camps would become over crowded to the point that Hitler had to
build many more, killing about 11 to 12 million people in WWII
Uahsibhistory)
SUMMARY
Similarities
Targeted
ethnical and religious minorities
(Uahsibhistory)
Both executed minorities in order to create a
“better” society
Both had a group of youth to help them
maintain their policies (Hitler had the SA, Mao
had the Red Guard)
Both created many policies to keep them in
power and to achieve their goals
Both used propaganda to promote their
ideology
Both used their military to inflict fear on the
public to prevent them from going against
their policies
Differences
Hitler targeted social minorities in
addition to ethnical and religious
minorities.
Hitler was threatened by women in the
work force and took away their rights,
while Mao granted rights to women.
Hitler targeted Jews more, while Mao
targeted the upper class in order to gain
rights to the working class
Mao created the Cultural Revolution to
bring power to the youth and the working
class in China.
Hitler created the Holocaust to mainly
create the perfect Aryan society
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WORKS CITED
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Szczepanski, Kallie. "Timeline of Mao Zedong's Life." About.com. N.p., n.d. Web.
<http://asianhistory.about.com/od/timelinesmaozedong/a/maoonepage.htm>.
"Mao Tse-tung Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 03 Jan.
2013. <http://www.biography.com/people/mao-tse-tung-9398142>.
"Mao - 1893-1949: The Rise to Power." Jansj.org :|: Writings :|:. N.p., n.d. Web. 06
Jan. 2013.
Stewart, Whitney. Mao Zedong. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century, 2006. Questia
School. Web. 6 Jan. 2013.
Deluca, Anthony R. Gandhi, Mao, Mandela, and Gorbachev: Studies in Personality,
Power, and Politics. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. Questia School. Web. 6 Jan.
2013.
"Cultural Revolution." Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/cultural-revolution.html>.
"Uahsibhistory - Minorities Mao and Hitler." Uahsibhistory - Minorities Mao and
Hitler. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2013.
"Spartacus Educational.“ http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERwomen.htm.
N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jan. 2013.