Also known as Mao Tse-tung, Mao Zedong was the founder of the People's Republic of China. Regarded in China as a great revolutionary who transformed the country into a world superpower, Mao remains a controversial character as his policies are said to have killed tens of millions of Chinese. From 1949 until his death in 1976, Mao's policies were at times catastrophic. Wanting to break away from the Russian model of communism, he laucnhed The Great Leap forward in 1958 where 20 to 30 million people died in the famine that followed. With his Cultural Revolution of 1966, he asserted his strength over his own party. His name is now barely mentioned in Chinese history books. One can also see his embalmed body in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.