50 years after his death, Mao still shapes China

50 years on, Mao still matters in China September 8, 2026On September 9, 1976, Mao Zedong died. The revolutionary leader who led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power and founded the People's Republic of China left behind a profoundly contradictory historical legacy. He shaped the narratives of revolution, nation-building and national independence, but also left behind immense social trauma as a result of successive political campaigns and persecutions. 50 years of transformation: How far has China moved away from Mao era? Over the past five decades, China has undergone radical changes. When Mao died, China was still a poor and relatively isolated communist state. Today, it is the world's second-largest economy, deeply embedded in the supply and value chains of global capitalism, with a vast private sector, a large urban middle class and a highly digitalized society. Zhang Lun, a professor at Cergy-Paris University, said Mao left behind four major political legacies: the authoritarian and highly centralized political system; a model of governance that relies on revolution and political campaigns to solve social problems; populist tendencies marked by anti-elitism and anti-rationalism; and utopian visions of egalitarianism and moralism. From the perspective of political legacies, Zhang argues, the most fundamental change in China over the past five decades has been "de-Maoization" — while its greatest challenge has been that this process was never fully completed. The legacy that never left: The party's supremacy Mao's name remains written into the CCP's constitution, while his thought remains part of China's official ideology and his portrait still hangs in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Mao helped forge the Chinese Communist Party, and his insistence on the party's supremacy over the state and society has remained a fundamental principle throughout the decades, said Jean Christopher Mittelstaedt, professor at the University of Zurich. Veteran journalist and political commentator Chang Ping agrees, adding that what has truly endured is the institutional core of the principle that "the party leads everything," serving a state vision of being able to "concentrate resources to accomplish major tasks." The CCP, he said, can pursue such objectives "at all costs" — meaning the interests of ordinary people can be sacrificed to the maximum extent necessary to preserve the regime. A return to the 'Mao era?' Under current leader Xi Jinping, a number of political concepts and methods of governance associated with the Mao era — such as ideological unity and the spirit of "struggle" — have again attracted attention. Xi's actions such as abolishing the presidential term limits, strengthening his personal authority and the incorporation of his political thought into the party and state constitutions have invited comparisons between him and Mao. Chang argues that the very term "return" is misleading, since elements of the Mao era have never fully disappeared. Zhang holds a similar view. Authoritarian rule, political rigidity, weak rule of law and the lack of effective guarantees for citizens' rights, he argues, are not only important elements of Mao's political legacy but also among the most significant continuities between the Mao era and China's current political system, he underscored. And Xi, who personally suffered during the Cultural Revolution, seems even move closer to Mao-era policies. "What Xi learned from the Cultural Revolution was not the lesson of a victim, but the lesson of power," Chang said. The lesson was not that "such a system must never exist again," but rather that "whoever loses power is at the mercy of others," he added. Felix Wemheuer, professor of modern China studies at the University of Cologne, echoed this view. "The conclusion Xi appears to have drawn from his own experience of the Cultural Revolution was clearly not that Mao should be completely abandoned," he said, "but rather that, for political reasons, Mao's historical status as the founder of the state, the military and the party must be upheld." Wemheuer views the current CCP leadership's approach to Mao as "fundamentally Machiavellian and pragmatic." In economic policy, for instance, there is no sign of a return to the Mao era, he said. Today's China operates a highly dynamic model of state capitalism, with a mix of ownership forms coexisting and maintaining a strong private sector. Nor is there any indication that China intends to return to the Mao-era model of a communist welfare state. The same applies to the idea of "self-reliance." Today's China could hardly afford to withdraw from the global economy and international supply chains. Xi remains a product of the system Mao created Experts say similarities between Mao and Xi can be seen in areas such as the emphasis on the CCP's supremacy, the elevation of a core leader, and populist elements that stress a close connection between the people and the leadership. Wemheuer argues that Xi possesses neither Mao's historical authority nor his personal charisma. The two also exercise power in fundamentally different ways. Mao could bypass party institutions, go for years without convening a party congress and mobilize the masses against the party and state apparatus. Mao himself was a populist with certain anarchic tendencies, Wemheuer said, and even tolerated the temporary collapse of the party-state system at the grassroots level in 1966-67. Xi, by contrast, would never allow such a situation to occur, the expert stressed. Xi places greater emphasis than Mao on control and top-down governance, consolidating power by strengthening institutions and the party apparatus. Mittelstaedt likewise cautions against equating Xi with Mao. First, Mao was a revolutionary who destroyed existing institutions during the Cultural Revolution and was fundamentally anti-bureaucratic in his political orientation. Xi, Mittelstaedt argues, does the opposite. Second, Mao stood above the party. His power came from "being Mao himself" rather than from the party's institutional structures. Xi, by contrast, is "a party man through and through." His authority derives from party institutions, and he governs through those institutions, Mittelstaedt pointed out. "At the end of the day," he noted, "Xi Jinping remains a product of the system Mao created." Mao nostalgia among younger generations? China has also seen recurring waves of Mao nostalgia, with some Chinese citizens invoking Mao online and expressing longing for what they describe as an era without social inequality, when everyone supposedly had enough to eat. Chang argues that what they are longing for is neither Mao himself nor the real Mao era. The actual Mao era, Mittelstaedt said, was marked by rigid hierarchies, pointing to the urban-rural household registration divide, different levels of privileges and supplies for officials, and a system in which one's family background could determine one's fate. It was, in many respects, more unequal than China today — and voicing grievances could be fatal. The imagined vision of a more equal world, he underlined, is therefore actually an indictment of the present situation, with widening inequality, soaring housing prices, and persistently limited social mobility. Still, many express the dissatisfaction with contemporary reality through Mao's image and language. In Chang's view, this is connected to the continuing contraction of space for public criticism in China. When forms of political expression such as independent trade unions, street protests, free media and opposition parties are tightly restricted, Mao remains a historical symbol that official ideology cannot entirely exclude. The result is a striking irony, he said, pointing to some people invoking Mao's language of anti-bureaucracy, resistance to oppression and even "rebellion" to criticize what they see as corruption, inequality and abuses of power in Xi's China today. Mittelstaedt said this makes Mao a double-edged sword. He remains an important symbol of the CCP's political legitimacy — but parts of the revolutionary language he left behind can also be turned into standards by which contemporary reality is measured and criticized. Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru