The first chairman of Communist China left his mark on history. There was a whole cult of personality around Mao Zedong. He was, after all, a hero. He’d made the Long March, fought off the Kuomintang and the Japanese, and maybe sort of accidentally caused the deaths of more innocent people than any other person in history.
Behind closed doors, though, Mao was a bit less perfect than his people knew. As his health got worse, Mao’s habits became stranger. He got up to some weird things—and he left behind some stories that are downright obscene.