ABSTRACT
Mao's impact on China must also be assessed in terms of economic and social changes in China after 1949. Despite the setbacks of the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution, overall China's economy made decided advances during the Maoist period. China's industrial sector grew rapidly and agricultural output was showing increases by the time of Mao's death. China's infrastructure expanded with the addition of new railways and improved roads. Maoist policies exacted an enormous human cost. In August 1966, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Central Committee, under the direct leadership of a newly energized and publicly visible Mao, issued a directive calling for a great 'cultural revolution' to begin. By 1969, in the north-western Muslim region of Xinjiang, a brief shooting war broke out between units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the PLA on the Sino-Soviet border. This threat to the nation's security led the CCP to announce an end to the Cultural Revolution in Xinjiang.
