Mao Zedong was a leader in politics.
The Cultural Revolution , formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution , was a sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976 . The Great Leap Forward of the People 's Republic of China ( PRC ) was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China ( CPC ) from 1958 to 1962 . Mao Zedong . Mao adopted Marxism -- Leninism while working at Peking University and became a founding member of the Communist Party of China ( CPC ) , leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927 . He was succeeded as Paramount leader by Hua Guofeng ( 1976 -- 1978 ) , who was quickly sidelined and replaced by Deng .