Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of China, died on September 9, 1976. At the time of his death, China was in a political and economic quagmire. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and subsequent factional fighting had left the country much poorer, weaker, and isolated than it had been in 1965. Scores of capable party officials, bureaucrats, intellectuals, and professionals were languishing in prison or laboring in factories, mines, and fields. Many schools had been closed, and an entire generation of young people were unable to obtain an education.