November 25 marked the 70th anniversary of the death of Mao Anying (1922-1950). Mao Anying was the son of Mao Zedong. His mother, Mao Zedong's wife, Yang Kaihui (1901–1930), was executed in a Kuomintang prison.

In 1942, Anying wrote three letters to Stalin, in which he asked to be sent to the front. “Dear Comrade Stalin! - he wrote. - I am a Chinese youth. In the Land of the Soviets you lead, I studied for 5 years. I love the USSR as I love China. I can’t watch the German fascists trample your country. I want to avenge the millions of killed Soviet people. I am determined to go to the front. Please support my request. Author - Mao Anying (Seryozha), date - May 1942 ". In the end, Anying succeeded in being sent to the front as a lieutenant in a tank company. He fought across Poland and Czechoslovakia, and ended the war in Berlin. His fellow soldiers knew him as the captain of the Red Army, Sergei Mayev. They considered him a Buryat.

In 1946, Anying returned to China at the direction of his father. His father sent him to work as a farm laborer for some peasant. However, this did not last long, about three months. Only then did Mao praise his son: “Everyone should taste the bitter in his life. Before you ate bread, drank milk, and now you are in China and you need to try Shenbei plague, it is very good for your health! "

In 1950, when the Korean War broke out, Anying volunteered for the front. He served as an interpreter at the headquarters of the future Marshal Peng Dehuai (1898-1974). It is said that during the raid of American bombers, Anying was preparing his own food - rice and eggs, and therefore did not have time to hide in a bomb shelter. Others refute this story, saying that it was invented to cast a shadow on Anying - they say, according to legend, he cooked himself delicious food, indulging his whim, and therefore became a victim of the US napalm bomb. Anyway, Anying died. Peng Dehuai was shocked by what had happened and upon arriving in Beijing asked for forgiveness from the elder Mao: “Chairman, I did not save Anying, it is my fault. Please punish me. " To which Mao replied with an extremely characteristic phrase: “An ordinary soldier died, and one should not make a special event out of this just because he is my son. It is normal that despite he is my son, the son of the Chairman of the Party, he can die as any other man in the name of the common cause of the peoples of China and Korea! "