THE CULT OF personality fostered by Mao Zedong is generally lamented on the mainland. Blind idolisation of the chairman propelled China's headlong rush into the twin tragedies of the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, which sowed the seeds of the greatest famine in recorded history, and the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.
Partly as a result, Deng Xiaoping, who experienced first-hand the madness of the latter tragedy, pointedly discouraged any similar worship of his own person in life and in death.
But while the cult that surrounded Mao was a disaster for China, it remains a godsend for his home village of Shaoshan in rural Hunan province. Shaoshan has profited handsomely from Mao's legacy and, on today's 80th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's establishment, is once again getting the chance to celebrate the chairman as a cash cow.
'We're really busy,' said Zhang Jingzhou, who works at the Shaoshan Party Committee's propaganda office, as he escorted a television crew from nearby Xiangtan on a three-day shoot in preparation for the anniversary. Today, the Hunan crew will broadcast Shaoshan's memorial pageant in honour of Mao and the party live on national television. The extravaganza is to be held at the feet of a giant copper statue of Mao.
By rights, Shaoshan should be no more than a township. But on the centennial anniversary of Mao's birth in 1993, Shaoshan was designated the administrative centre of six neighbouring townships and granted municipality status.
Shaoshan's extended boundaries encompass a population of only 101,000, making it one of the smallest cities on the mainland and perhaps the only one of its size with a dedicated railway line.