logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2020
8m 58s

Chairman Mao's Little Red Book

Bbc World Service
About this episode

In 1966, the collected thoughts of China's communist leader became an unexpected best-seller around the world. A compendium of pithy advice and political instructions from Mao Zedong, it was soon to be found on student bookshelves everywhere.

(Photo: Front cover of Mao's Little Red Book)

Up next
May 2023
Mallory on Everest
In 1999 the body of the legendary British mountaineer, George Mallory, was found on Mount Everest. Mallory disappeared on the mountain in 1924 after making a final push for the summit with his fellow climber Andrew Irvine. They were never seen again. Farhana Haider has been speak ... Show More
10m 6s
May 2023
Mallory on Everest
In 1999 the body of the legendary British mountaineer, George Mallory, was found on Mount Everest. Mallory disappeared on the mountain in 1924 after making a final push for the summit with his fellow climber Andrew Irvine. They were never seen again. Farhana Haider has been speak ... Show More
10m 6s
Dec 2016
Russia's 'Dog Man'
In November 1994, the Russian conceptual artist Oleg Kulik posed in front of an art gallery in central Moscow, naked, pretending to be a guard dog and attacking passers by. It was his way of highlighting the fact since the collapse of the USSR three years earlier, Russians had lo ... Show More
9 m
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2020
The Cultural Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Chairman Mao and the revolt he led within his own party from 1966, setting communists against each other, to renew the revolution that he feared had become too bourgeois and to remove his enemies and rivals. Universities closed and the students for ... Show More
48m 9s
Dec 2020
The Cultural Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Chairman Mao and the revolt he led within his own party from 1966, setting communists against each other, to renew the revolution that he feared had become too bourgeois and to remove his enemies and rivals. Universities closed and the students for ... Show More
48m 9s
May 2014
Jailed for Speaking his Mind in China
In 1957 the Chinese Communist leader Chairman Mao made a speech encouraging criticism of his Communist system saying 'Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend'. We hear from Harry Wu, who made his views known and ended up in prison for nearly twenty y ... Show More
9m 3s
Jul 2015
3.43- The Conspiracy of Equals
The adventures of everyone's favorite proto-communist. k 
35m 11s
Jul 2021
The Chinese Communist Party
A small group of revolutionaries formed the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921. Led by Chairman Mao, they fought their way to power in the world's most populous nation and have stayed in control since the end of China's civil war in 1949. Zhu Zhende was a young recruit in the P ... Show More
9m 29s
Aug 2020
Mao Zedong Part 3: The Cultural Revolution
Mao’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ sets out to purge the minds of an entire population. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader himself leads a life of debauchery and excess - as his former doctor remembers. The Chairman seems invincible. But as his health deteriorates, his legacy is anything but ... Show More
48m 16s
Aug 2020
Mao Zedong Part 2: The ‘Great Leap Forward’
Mao Zedong's Communists come down from the mountains to do battle with the Nationalists. After clinching victory, Mao is greeted by many as a hero. But life under the new Chairman is about to get a whole lot worse. Installed as Supreme Leader, Mao sets about revolutionising the w ... Show More
52m 17s
Feb 2021
Red China
It's episode 3 and Billy's transported us back to post-1949 Communist China. Katie and Tom talk to Prof. Yangwen Zheng about her childhood under the regime, and she's got a fascinating story to tell. It's one of stolen pencil cases, the class enemy, disappearing family members, w ... Show More
41m 20s