The crimson flags hanging over Nanjie village’s “East is Red” Square barely move in the sweltering summer heat as tourists pose for photographs beside a towering statue of Chairman Mao Zedong. Nearly 50 years after his death, Mao remains a powerful presence in the central Henan province village, often described as “China’s last Maoist village”.
Mao, who died on Sept. 9, 1976, continues to occupy an unusual place in Chinese public life. While memories of the turmoil of his rule have faded, nostalgia for his egalitarian ideals appears to be growing amid a slowing economy and concerns over inequality.
In Nanjie, residents continue to live under principles of shared ownership, even though the rest of China abandoned that economic model. Murals depicting Mao cover the village, while electric carts carry visitors past uniform apartment blocks decorated with socialist slogans. Guides explain how cooperative ownership in local enterprises helps fund free housing for residents.
“I still revere him very much,” said Xie Kaiyue, a 22-year-old local university student, despite being born almost three decades after Mao died. She said young people today, including herself, were not as “strong-spirited” as those of the past and that “people were purer”.
About 500 kilometres north, the mountain village of Dazhai in Shanxi province offers another glimpse into Mao-era nostalgia. Once promoted by Mao as a national model after residents transformed its arid hills into irrigated farmland, Dazhai now attracts tourists reflecting on a period when Mao dominated China’s political and social life.
Li, a 64-year-old visitor from Xi’an, recalled growing up when people “didn’t have enough to eat or to wear”. Yet he remembered what he described as a country filled with energy and a collective determination to transform China. “Of course I miss it,” he said.
The commercialisation of Mao’s image is particularly visible in Dazhai, where shops sell posters, playing cards, crockery and other souvenirs bearing his likeness, alongside copies of the “Little Red Book” of his quotations.
Yet the renewed fascination with Mao exists alongside strict limits on how his rule can be publicly discussed. Mao led the 1949 communist revolution against the ruling nationalists and introduced collectivised ownership, arguing that it would strengthen industry and unite the country. His policies, however, have also been blamed by historians for mass starvation and millions of deaths.
The Chinese Communist Party continues to portray Mao as a revolutionary hero, while acknowledging that the Cultural Revolution he initiated was a “grave mistake”. The decade-long campaign beginning in 1966 saw intellectuals targeted as “class enemies”, schools closed and private property and land collectivised. The government says the resulting Great Famine killed around 15 million people, while historians estimate the death toll at around 20-43 million.
Public discussion of those darker chapters remains tightly controlled. In one museum, references to the Cultural Revolution had reportedly been crudely removed from signage.
“Everything you see in the public domain … is the party line. No one is allowed to deviate from this,” said scholar Xu Chenggang, who was himself targeted as a child during the Cultural Revolution because his father had been labelled a “rightist”.
Under current leader Xi Jinping, public discussion has faced further restrictions, with warnings against “historical nihilism” — narratives that contradict the party’s interpretation of history.
That controlled historical memory has nevertheless left room for romanticised views of the Mao era, particularly among younger people facing intense competition in education and employment and long working hours. In December, a series of viral videos on Bilibili argued that the 2017 film “Youth”, about performers in a military dance troupe during the 1970s, was a subtle tribute to the Cultural Revolution. The videos were removed after receiving more than 35 million views in less than a week.
Kerry Brown, head of the Lau China Institute in London and author of a recent book on Mao, said some people increasingly viewed the Cultural Revolution as a period of idealism rather than materialism, but described such an interpretation as “a total fabrication”.
Others take a more positive view of Mao’s historical role. Mobo Gao, professor of Chinese studies at Adelaide University, said many credit him with laying foundations for China’s transformation into a modern, technologically advanced nation.
In Shijiazhuang, 20-year-old Wang Zhihao and his classmates posed beside a giant Mao statue. “We admire and revere Chairman Mao very much. He is a great figure,” Wang said. “He led the founding of New China.”
