This study contends that the personality, thought processes and creative policies of Mao were substantially moulded by the "ch'i" elements of hyperbole and astronomical power found in traditional political leaders and Chinese literature.

This study contends that the personality, thought processes and creative policies of Mao were substantially moulded by the "ch'i" elements of hyperbole and astronomical power found in traditional political leaders and Chinese literature. It was the phenomenon of "ch'i" which brought home Mao's response to the Marxist-Leninist magniloquent demand for a communist society of "universal brotherhood". Mao's functional "ch'i" provided him with the methodology of creating astronomical power by effectively organizing the Chinese masses for his hyperbolical task of the Chinese revolution which was "part of the world revolution". With his "ch'i" approach, asserts the author, Mao made an original contribution to Marxist theory.