Mao Zedong’s father, Mao Yichang.↓
Mao Zedong’s mother, Wen Qimei.↓
The house in Shaoshanchong village where Mao Zedong was born.↓
The room where he was born.↓
The first photograph of Mao Zedong, taken in Changsha, spring of 1913.↓
Mao Zedong’s favorite professor, Yang Changji.↓
Professor Li Dazhao, the first Chinese Bolshevik.↓
Professor Chen Duxiu, founder of the Chinese Communist Party.↓
The First CCP Congress took place in this house in Shanghai.↓
Members of the Central Committee Bureau of the Soviet areas, Ruijin, November 1931. Left to right: Gu Zuolin 顾作霖, Ren Bishi, Zhu De, Deng Fa 邓发, Xiang Ying, Mao Zedong, and Wang Jiaxiang.↓
CCP leaders in Yan’an, December 1937. Front row (left to right): Xiang Ying, Kai Feng(凯丰，何克全), Wang Ming, Chen Yun, Liu Shaoqi. Rear row (left to right): Kang Sheng, Peng Dehuai, Luo Fu, Zhang Guotao, Lin Boqu, Bo Gu, Zhou Enlai, and Mao Zedong.↓
Presidium of the Sixth Enlarged CCP Central Committee Plenum, Yan’an, Fall of 1938. Front row (left to right): Kang Sheng, Mao Zedong, Wang Jiaxiang, Zhu De, Xiang Ying, Wang Ming. Rear row (left to right): Chen Yun, Bo Gu, Peng Dehuai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Luo Fu.↓
Mao Zedong reads Stalin, Yan’an, 1939.↓
Yang Kaihui, Mao’s second wife, and their sons, Anying (right) and Anqing, Shanghai, 1924.↓
Mao and He Zizhen, his third wife, Bao’an, 1936.↓
Jiang Qing, Mao’s fourth wife, Moscow, 1949.↓
Mao and his son Anying, Yan’an, 1946.↓
Mao’s son Mao Anqing, Moscow, 1950s.↓
Mao and his daughter Li Min, Xiangshan, 1949.↓
Mao and his daughter Li Na (far left), Beijing, early 1950s.↓
CCP-Guomindang negotiations, Chongqing, fall 1945. Front row (left to right): Patrick J. Hurley 赫尔利, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong. Rear row (left to right): Chiang Kai-shek’s son Chiang Ching-kuo, General Zhang Qun, and China’s foreign minister Wang Shijie 王世杰.↓
Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi, and Gao Gang in Moscow, July 1949.↓
Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing, October 1, 1949. At far left is Lin Boqu; at far right is Zhou Enlai.↓
Mao at Tiananmen Palace wearing a ribbon that says zhuxi (Chairman), Beijing, October 1, 1949.↓
Mao and Joseph Stalin, Moscow, December 21, 1949.↓
Nikita Khrushchev, Mao, and Nikolai Bulganin, Moscow, November 7, 1957.↓
Mao Zedong floating in the Yangzi River, Wuhan, July 16, 1966.↓
Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, and Lin Biao celebrate the Cultural Revolution, Beijing, late 1960s.↓
Red Guards assault a victim during the Cultural Revolution.↓
Mao and Richard Nixon. Mao,s last mistress, Zhang Yufeng, is in the center, Beijing, February 21, 1972.↓
Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, 1974.↓
Mao lies in state following his death on September 9, 1976.↓
The photographs reproduced in this book are from five sources. The photograph on the title page is Swim Ink/Corbis. Photographs nos. 1–6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 17, 19–21, 23–25, and 33 come from the excellent collection In Memory of Mao Zedong, edited by Museum of the Chinese Revolution (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1986). Photographs nos. 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 22, 26–29, 31, and 32 are preserved in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History. Photograph no. 9 was taken by our colleague and friend Dr. Daria A. Spichak of the Russian Higher School of Economics. Finally, photo no. 30 is from the National Security Archive website at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB145/index.htm.
We express our gratitude to Mr. Geng Bao, deputy director and editor of Wenwu chubanshe, Dr. Valerii N. Shepelev, deputy director of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, and Dr. Daria A. Spichak for granting us permission to reproduce these photographs.