Abstract:

"This absorbing documentary profiles the unsteady rise of Mao Zedong, the political pressures resulting in the Long March of 1934 and the inevitable but unsuccessful civil war in 1937. Distracted by the Japanese invasion and forced to cooperate with the Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek, Mao nonetheless increased his grass-roots support. In 1949, with Soviet monetary support, Mao took complete control, creating the People's Republic of China on October 1."