By the way, that is an actual chalk illustration. Very impressed. In a preview of things to come in 1942, Mao initiated a rectification program, which basically meant students and intellectuals were sent down into the countryside to give them a taste of what real China was like in an effort to re-educate them. We try to be politically neutral here on Crash Course, but we are always opposed to intellectuals doing hard labor. But anyway, within four years of the end of World War II, the communists routed Chiang Kai-shek's army and sent them off to Taiwan. And these military victories paved the way for Mao to declare the People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949. So once in power, Mao and the PRC were faced with the task of creating a new socialist state.