How Does Mao's Faith in the Party Fail?

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At 16, they're sent out to work and learn humility for five long years in the countryside. For even the brightest children, the long stretch of manual labor is the only route to university. It's hard to know how much he wrestled with this idea of loyalty to the party because most of what we rely on now are his own accounts. He will talk about things like digging wells and doing manual labor as being a cleansing experience.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is a product of Mao Zedong’s revolution. On Sunday, he'll become the most powerful Chinese leader since the Communist Party’s founder — and maybe the most powerful person in the world.

This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Additional production and fact checking by Siona Peterous, Avishay Artsy, Hady Mawajdeh, and Jillian Weinberger

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