Mao Zedong was a leader in politics.
Great Leap Forward . The campaign was led by Chairman Mao Zedong and aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization . 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 . ( Mao himself admitting 800,000 deaths in the classicide and 712,000 in the suppression of Counterrevolutionaries ) In 1957 , he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform China 's economy from an agrarian economy to an industrial one .