Mao Zedong was a leader in politics.
1972 Nixon visit to China . Throughout the week the President and his most senior advisers engaged in substantive discussions with the PRC , including a meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong , while First Lady Pat Nixon toured schools , factories and hospitals in the city of Beijing , Shanghai and Hangzhou with the large American press corps in tow . 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 . In 1972 , Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing , signalling a policy of opening China , which was furthered under the rule of Deng Xiaoping ( 1978 -- 1992 ) .