In a modern China grappling with widening social inequality, Mao's words provide justification for the anger many young people feel toward a business class they see as exploitative
FILE — Children on a school trip, dressed up as Red Army soldiers in front of a statue of Mao at the Revolution Museum in Jinggangshan, China, on April 21, 2021. The Communist Party’s growing presence in everyday life has also opened doors for Mao, who is making a comeback among China’s Generation Z.
Image: Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
(The New New World)
They read him in libraries and on subways. They organized online book clubs devoted to his works. They uploaded hours of audio and video, spreading the gospel of his revolutionary thinking.
Chairman Mao is making a comeback among China’s Generation Z. The Communist Party’s supreme leader, whose decades of nonstop political campaigns cost millions of lives, is inspiring and comforting disaffected people born long after his death in 1976. To them, Mao Zedong is a hero who speaks to their despair as struggling nobodies.
In a modern China grappling with widening social inequality, Mao’s words provide justification for the anger many young people feel toward a business class they see as exploitative. They want to follow in his footsteps and change Chinese society — and some have even talked about violence against the capitalist class if necessary.
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