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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arunton.

And me, William Durunple.

And welcome back to our series on Mao Zedong.

We're delighted to welcome back our very good friend now and hostage. Professor Rana Mitter from Harford Kennedy School is back with us and is going to never be able to leave again. I'm going to be let out of the box at some point. Maybe if you're good. We'll see how it goes in the next couple of episodes, shall we, Ran? I'm not promising anything. You have to throw some bits of chicken or something in there.

Now, remind us, Willie, where we were in the last episode.

We were in Stockholm Syndrome, with rather increasingly fond of this pod,

as he told us how Mao had consolidated his power at the very top of the People's Republic of China. We saw how his policy of cleaning the

house before inviting guests saw Mao crack down on the party and private businesses before he

began rapidly industrialising under the first five-year plans. We also saw how the Hundred Flowers

campaign, a brief moment of openness,

culminated in the brutal crackdown of the anti-rightist movement.

It was a very strange thing, the Hundred Flowers campaign, because all it did was sort of locate

the people who were going to annoy him in the future very successfully. Over the next two

episodes, we're going to be telling you the dramatic harrowing story

at the final two decades of Mao's rule.

So, rather, by 1958, Mao is 65 years old.

What's happening internationally?

Particularly, I was intrigued last year by the comparison with India,

which is still in very sort of peak Nauruvian mode.

...