Mao Zedong's 50th anniversary of the youth pilgrimage: The Communist Party is re-packaging its wounds into political beliefs

On 9 September 2026, Mao Zedong died on the fiftieth anniversary. The President Mao Memorial Hall in Beijing was extended, with a large crowd of people gathered at Hunan Shan Mao Ze Tong Bong Square the previous night, and the media launched the commemorative posters, short videos and thematic content simultaneously. The joint morning newspaper quoted Agence France Presse (AFP) as reporting that the scene of the Sakayama site included not only middle-aged and senior citizens, but also a large number of university students and young workers; The Zedong portrait, the red flag and the Mao Chairman's Record were waved and the revolutionary song was sang. Half a century ago, Mao was not put back in history by the CPC, but was taken back to the present and became a spiritual symbol of economic anxiety, nationalism and political loyalty.

The official memorial is not a mere historical review, but a re-program of "How to Remember Mao Zedong"

On 9 September, the daily newspaper People ' s daily, the news media, Xingqingping, the daily farmer newspaper, Sanno, China, and numerous local party media sent intensive communications. The daily newspaper of the people defined Mao Zedong as “the great patriot and national hero of China in recent times”, and the Chinese newspaper described his life as “a tireless struggle for the country's wealth, national renewal and the happiness of its people”. These expressions perpetuate the positive political characterization that the CPC has long used.

The problem is that the commemorations barely touch on the leaps, the popular communes, the anti-right movement, the cultural revolution and the resulting massive political persecution, social destruction and irregular deaths. The CPC is not fully commemorating a historic figure, but is re-establishing a political icon with selective memory, which is the only one left to “revolution, independence, power, people”.

This is the central function of the advocacy system: history does not need to be denied, but simply to remove the negative from public narratives. After decades, Mao Zedong, a young generation, became more and more exposed to a trimmed political product than a historical figure who could be freely discussed, criticized and studied.

The increase in young people in the Shanshan indicates that Maoistism is being revived by real anxiety

According to the AFP, on the evening of 8 September, about 1,000 people gathered at the Maotao Bronze Square in Shanshan, and on 9 September hundreds of tourists, including a number of university students, were still queuing to give flowers. A 30-year-old interviewee stated that the contemporary youth, facing real pressure, began to look for answers from history.

This phenomenon cannot be simply understood as official mobilization. Some young people do embrace the Mao Zedong symbol, especially after difficulties in employment, housing price pressures, income stagnation, stratification and the proliferation of “inner-film” narratives, but the period of maturities is reimagined as an era of “less-disparant” “capital-bound” “more dignified workers” “less-disparity”.

This nostalgia does not mean that they really understand the gross age, but rather that real grievances are seeking an export that is allowed to exist. In the political space of China, public criticism of the current system is costly, but praises Mao Zedong for its political security. Thus, disaffection with real capital and power can be packaged as “memory Chairman Mao” and released without direct contact with the legitimacy of the regime.

The Communist Party uses both its fur and its fear of a real Maoist looking back at today's powerful structure

The Xi Jinping era has been strengthening the Mao Zedong symbol by re-introducing “self-reliance” “combat spirit” “co-richness”, reinforcing red education and expanding the educational function in political memorials such as Xinshan and Yanan. But what the CPC really needs is not the full political logic of the Mao era, but the chosen resources of loyalty.

Today, China has a large private capital, real estate wealth, financial elite, State entrepreneurship and party privilege. If young people really look at reality in the Maoist language, they can easily trace the problem from “capitalists” to who approves the land system, who controls finance, who owns State enterprise resources, who allocates wealth through power. This would directly touch the current party structure itself.

Thus, the Maoistism allowed by the CPC usually has clear boundaries: it can be celebrated as a leader, can sing a red song, can oppose “Western capitalism” or can express abstract claims for fairness; But there is no truly independent workers ' organization, which can challenge local government and State enterprise management in the name of class, and even less re-direct the mobilization of the Maoist population to oversee the Communist Party itself.

This “controllable hair” is essentially a post-embracing political consumption. Mao Zedong is allowed to be a visual, slogan and emotion, but not a tool for the power of the people to organize themselves again.

Mao Zedong remains a major asset of the Chinese Communist Party ' s ideology from the national memorial to the overseas.

The “outside the bare wall” was concerned with the fiftieth anniversary, more importantly because Mao was not a mere domestic propaganda. Chinese diplomatic and consular missions abroad, Chinese schools, diaspora groups, Allied War Organizations and pro-Chinese associations have been disseminating the CCP narratives of history through the national day, the establishment of a party, the commemoration of the resistance and the “red culture” campaign. The image of Mao as the “new China founder” is one of the most central symbols of this set of political narratives.

In the overseas language, the Communist Party has often reduced the gross era to a historical story of “national independence” and “extrication from power”, while diluting the anti-right, Holodomor, the culture of civilisation and political cleansing into internal disputes. Once such narratives are introduced into the Chinese-language education and diaspora activities abroad, they are not just historical views, but rather the CCP ' s interpretation of its legitimacy is brought into other national societies.

That is why Mao's commemoration cannot be seen as a “nost of old age”. It also has the responsibility for regime identity education: to tell young people where the People ' s Republic of China came from, who is entitled to define the history of the country and why the ruling of the Communist Party is described as the only continuous path to national renewal.

The 50th anniversary really shows that Xi Jinping needs leadership politics again

Fifty years after Mao's death, the CPC still needs to prove its political origin through Mao. Xi has been strengthening the “two-core” status, party history education and leadership loyalty, and there is a clear historical echo with the individualized power logic of the Mao era.

This does not mean that China simply returned to the 1970s. Economic structures, social patterns and the international environment are all completely different. But Leaders worship to be an important resource for re-establishing political governance: when systems cannot generate legitimacy through open competition, power relies more on historical myths, nationalism and individual authority to maintain cohesion.

The crowds of the Shihshan Night, the commemorative posters of the People's Daily newspaper, and the flowers given by young students in front of the statues form the same political picture: the Communist Party is re-establishing Mao Zedong from a controversial historical figure and is re-establishing a political ancestor that can provide the emotional, loyal and legitimate resources of Xi Jinping.

What is really being compressed is the right of the Chinese to understand the history of the twentieth century in its entirety. When a regime can decide which history can be commemorated and which disasters can be silenced, remembrance itself is a rule.