Thirty years ago, Chairman Mao Zedong died in Beijing at the age of 83. On the occasion of the September 9 anniversary of his death, Beijing Review asked scholars to discuss the legacy of the most legendary state leader that modern China has ever seen. Merle Goldman, Professor Emerita of History at Boston University and an associate of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University, Thomas Paul Bernstein, a political science professor and member of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University, and Yang Kuisong, a history professor at Peking University, shared their opinions with Beijing Review reporters Wang Yanjuan and Chen Wen in New York and Li Li in Beijing. Thirty years ago, Chairman Mao Zedong died in Beijing at the age of 83. On the occasion of the September 9 anniversary of his death, Beijing Review asked scholars to discuss the legacy of the most legendary state leader that modern China has ever seen. Merle Goldman, Professor Emerita of History at Boston University and an associate of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University, Thomas Paul Bernstein, a political science professor and member of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University, and Yang Kuisong, a history professor at Peking University, shared their opinions with Beijing Review reporters Wang Yanjuan and Chen Wen in New York and Li Li in Beijing.