The founder of computer giant Lenovo, Liu Chuanzhi, also borrowed Mao's style in managing his company. He once said half-jokingly, "Legend has its commercial secrets, but not to those who understand Mao's theories."

Even some up-and-coming Chinese entrepreneurs, who didn't experience the Cultural Revolution, are looking to Mao in their business dealings.

Chen Tianqiao, 33, CEO and cofounder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd., was listed as the richest man in China for running the country's most successful online gaming company. He wrote an article on company management that mimicked Mao's style of language.

Top Shanda executive Tang Jun, former president of Microsoft China, is yet another admitted fan of Mao. He once organized all employees of his company for a package tour to Jinggangshan, location of the Communist Party's outpost against the Kuomintang in the 1920s and 1930s and now a nationalistic tourist site. Chen Tianqiao said one of the reasons he hired Tang to be the president of Shanda was that they had a common affinity for Mao.

However, Tang Can, a researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that younger people worship Mao only as an idol, different from the total devotion to Mao of the previous generation.

Young people tend to like Mao for his rebellious and defiant spirit. Tang Gang, a university student from the western city of Xi'an, said, "He was a man of strong will and feared nothing, which was part of American journalist Edgar Snow's conclusion about China's future half a century ago."

Mao's charisma also makes him interesting to university students. "Mao's sayings are deep as well as colloquial and vivid," said Han Tian, a Peking University student. Han gave an example: "When Mao talked about the role of heavy industry in the country's development, he used vivid metaphors-If the economy is a human body, agriculture is one fist, military defense is the other fist; to punch your enemies hard, you need to steady yourself, and that is the role of heavy industry."

"Mao's emphasis on patriotism is an important reason why he led the Chinese revolution to victory. But this revolutionary movement failed to overcome patriarchal traditions in Chinese culture later in his life, which fuels the unfavorable personal worship and abuse of power," said a university teacher who refused to give her name.

Image overhaul

Mao's image has gone through several transitions since his death, starting officially in China with Mao Zedong Man, Not God, a book first published in 1989 that brought him down to the realm of the people after being viewed for years as a god-like figure.

According to Gao Hua, a history professor at Nanjing University, there is a new wave of commemoration of Mao, related to social realities such as the widening gap between rich and poor. He said that against the background of a large number of workers being laid-off from state-run companies and the collapse of the social welfare systems in cities, as well as skyrocketing costs for health care and education, people left behind by China's reforms are nostalgic about Mao's era.

Gao said that some people have a selective memory of Mao, screening out such events in the later years of his rule as the Great Leap Forward and the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), and taking Mao as a token of social justice to express their dissatisfaction over the current reality.

Zhang Suhua, a historian who studied Mao's life and works for 27 years, has summarized four reasons why Chinese people have a lasting interest in Mao. First of all, she said, Mao's status as one of the founding fathers both of the Communist Party and of the country is prominent and unique. The adherence to Mao's way of thinking has been written into the Constitution and the Party Constitution.

Second, Mao is a complicated figure, whose life involves great historical achievements and severe mistakes. "People are intrigued by the evaluation of such a controversial figure," she said.

Third, he used to be glorified and restoring him into an earthly man involves a lot of work and debate. Fourth, she added, Mao is a man of great wisdom and reflects an entire epoch. Studying Mao's successes and failures is still meaningful for today.

"When studying the failures of Mao, it is important to distinguish those caused by the system, those by his shallow understandings of socialism, those by his miscalculation of the situation and those by his personal reasons," Zhang said.

Professor Gao regards Mao as an important historical phenomenon worthy of reflection and study by future generations. "Mao's phenomenon is the outcome of China in a transitional period, from an imperial country to a republic. At the turn of the new century, China is facing new challenges, which requires new thinking and new systems," he said. "So all the reflections on Mao should be future-oriented."