Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976), Chinese Communist leader, founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. He believed that Marxist ideas must be adapted to China. Contrary to the Marxist orthodoxy, which emphasized workers, Mao organized peasants in the countryside. His philosophical writings include On Practice (1937) and On Contradiction (1937), synthesizing dialectical materialism and traditional Chinese philosophy. In his later years he departed from the gradual strategy of his On New Democracy (1940) and adopted increasingly radical means to change China. Finally he started the Cultural Revolution in 1967 and plunged China into disaster. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY , LIANG SOU -MING , LIU SHAO -CH ‘I. S.-h.L.