Chairman Mao

CHAIRMAN MAO was one of the most powerful leaders the world had ever seen: a brilliant tactician, a political and economic theorist, and a statesman who ruled a billion people for three decades.

In this revealing program, journey back in time to find out how the supreme leader of Communist China came to power and forever changed the course of his country’s history. During the early ’60s, Mao found himself in a power struggle against people in his own government, and decided that in order to “save” China, he must first destroy it. Through powerful archival footage and photography, witness how Mao and his cohorts harnessed the power of a fanatical youth movement to bring about the infamous Cultural Revolution, and how untold millions of people died as a result of his extreme and violent policies. And hear from those who lived through Mao’s reign to gain insight into how this son of a peasant farmer came to wield such extraordinary power over the hearts and minds of the Chinese people.

From his rise to power to his death in 1976, HISTORY™ mines formerly guarded vaults and archives in a relentless search for the truth behind the legend of CHAIRMAN MAO.