NANJIE, China, Sept 6, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - The crimson flags on Nanjie village's 
"East is Red" Square hang limp in the sweltering summer heat as a trickle of 
tourists take photos with a towering statue of Chairman Mao Zedong, still 
gleaming white almost 50 years after he died.

The Great Helmsman, who died September 9 1976, is still very much a fixture 
in central Henan province's Nanjie -- often dubbed "China's last Maoist 
village".

Nostalgia for Mao's egalitarian ideals is growing in China as memories of his 
turbulent rule fade and the country grapples with a slowing economy and 
inequality.

Mao, who led the 1949 communist revolution against the ruling nationalists, 
ushered in an era of collectivised ownership he argued would drive industry 
and unite the country, but his drastic policies are also blamed by historians 
for mass starvation and millions of deaths.

While the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintains Mao was a revolutionary 
hero, it publicly acknowledged after his death that his devastating Cultural 
Revolution was a "grave mistake" -- a verdict upheld by subsequent leaders.

In Nanjie, countless murals of the former Chinese leader are plastered around 
the village.

Residents still live under Maoist principles of shared ownership, while the 
rest of the country moved on from that economic model.

"I still revere him very much," Xie Kaiyue, a 22-year-old local university 
student, said of Mao, who died almost three decades before she was born.

"I think young people in the village and, actually, myself, aren't as strong-
spirited as in the past... People were purer," she said.

Nearby, electric carts whisked visitors past uniform apartment blocks 
plastered with socialist slogans as guides explained how cooperative 
ownership in local enterprises funds free housing for residents.

- Party line -

Around 500 kilometres (310 miles) north, in the mountain village of Dazhai in 
Shanxi province, once promoted by Mao as a national model after locals 
terraformed its arid hills into irrigated fields, tourists reminisce about an 
era when the Great Helmsman dominated political and social life.

"(People) didn't have enough to eat or to wear," Li, a 64-year-old tourist 
from Xi'an, said of his childhood.

"But... the whole country was full of vigour, and there was a spirit of 
struggling with heaven, earth, and people to change every aspect of China," 
the retiree said.

"Of course I miss it."

Now, Dazhai is overflowing with shops selling items that support Mao's 
personality cult -- posters, playing cards, and crockery emblazoned with his 
image, and the "Little Red Book" of his quotations.

Still, references to dark chapters of his decades in absolute power are 
tightly censored in public discourse. 

The decade-long episode instigated by Mao in 1966 saw intellectuals brutally 
targeted as "class enemies" and schools shuttered, setting China back for 
years in education and development.

Private property and land were collectivised, while economic management 
pushed the country to the Great Famine, which the government says killed 
around 15 million people, while historians estimate around 20-43 million.

In one museum, text mentioning the Cultural Revolution had been crudely 
scraped off 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 targeted as 
a child in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution because his father was 
labelled a "rightist".

Mao's face is printed on banknotes, his portrait overlooks Tiananmen Square, 
and his body is preserved in a mausoleum.

Every year new movies and TV shows dramatising Mao's life beam the message of 
his great deeds to public.

Public discussion has been squeezed further under current leader Xi Jinping, 
who warns against "historical nihilism", or narratives contradicting the 
party's own.

"The Communist Party told people there were mistakes, but what's the meaning 
of 'mistake'? No one knows," Xu said.

- 'Great figure' -

The sanitised history has left space for romanticised interpretations among 
youths frustrated by long working hours and intense competition in education 
and the job market.

In December, a viral video series on Bilibili -- a platform popular with 
those under 30 -- argued that the 2017 movie 'Youth', which follows young 
performers in a military dance troupe during the 1970s, was a subtle ode to 
the Cultural Revolution.

The videos, which praised Mao and blamed capitalist elites for crushing the 
movement, were removed after gaining over 35 million views in less than a 
week.

"Today, there is more of a sense that the Cultural Revolution was a period of 
idealism, where society was fired by ideals and not by the relentless pursuit 
of money and material goods," said to Kerry Brown, head of the Lau China 
Institute in London and author of a recent book on Mao.

"This is, of course, a total fabrication," he said.

Many also credit Mao with laying the foundation for China to become a modern, 
technologically advanced nation, said Mobo Gao, professor of Chinese studies 
at Adelaide University.

"They ask, where did (today's China) come from? It came from the 
establishment of the PRC," said Gao, who lived through the Mao era in rural 
Jiangxi province.

"Who was the one who really established the PRC? It must be Mao."

In Shijiazhuang, an industrial city of seven million northeast of Dazhai, 20-
year-old Wang Zhihao and his classmates posed with a giant Mao statue 
opposite the municipal government.

"We admire and revere Chairman Mao very much. He is a great figure," Wang 
said, as the sound of elderly residents singing songs praising the Communist 
Party drifted over from the nearby square.

"He led the founding of New China."