Background Picture Taken by Marc Riboud © 1963

People's Republic of China
1950: Mao orders the persecution of "counter-revolutionaries" which causes the deaths of 710,000 people
1951: The communists conduct mass trials against "counterrevolutionaries"
1952: Mao orders the persecution of landlords which causes the deaths of about one million people
1953: The communist party launches the first five-year plan with the aims of industrialization, collectivization of agriculture, and political centralization
1958: Mao launches the "Great Leap Forward" (mass mobilization and collectivization of the farms to increase crop production and steel production
1959: between 16 million and 30 million people starve to death because of the famine caused by the "Great Leap Forward"
Cultural Revolution
1966: Mao launches the "Cultural Revolution" (call upon students to form units of "Red Guards" and rebel against authority by using propaganda Kang Sheng had suggested: millions of people die in the next three years, the Great Wall is destroyed, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiao Ping are ousted)
1971: China takes over the seat at the United Nations that was held by Taiwan
1975: Chiang Kai-shek dies and is succeeded as dictator of Taiwan by his son Chiang Ching-kuo
1976: Zhou Enlai and Mao die
1978: Deng Xiaoping seizes power and launches pseudo-capitalistic economic reforms
1980: Month-long trial of the "Gang of Four" (Mao associates)
1981: The Communist Party formally condemns Mao for the economic disasters from 1957 until his death