| Term | Definition |
| Karl Marx | A german philosopher, shaped Mao's ideas about class struggle |
| Proletariat | industrial working class |
| Totalitarian state | government controls every aspect of citizens' lives through single party dictatorship |
| Propaganda | spread of ideas to promote a cause or damage an opposing cause |
| Collective farms | government forced peasants to pool their land, tools, and labor |
| Communes | Peasants lived and worked on these as part of Mao's Great Leap Forward |
| Capitalism | Free market economy |
| Four Modernizations | modernizing agriculture, expanding industry, developing science and technology, upgrading defense |
| Gang of Four | Mao's widow and her top supporters |
| Mao Zedong | First communist leader of China |
| Deng Xiaoping | Moderate party leader, become China's leader in 1978 |
| Responsibility system | each farm family was responsible for making its own living |
| Heavy industry | automobile, industrial machinery, steel, rubber, mining or petroleum |
| Light industry | manufacturing of consumer goods |
| Special economic zones | Designated areas in countries that possess special economic regulations that are different from other areas in the same country |
| Three-good student | means good health, good politics, and good marks |
| One-child policy | attempt to control population growth |
| World Trade Organization | an international agency that regulates trade |
| Hong Kong | China regained control of this area in 1997 from the British |
| Taiwan | Island where the Nationalist party fled to in 1949 |
| Lei Feng | a propaganda story to promote communist government and revolutionary goals |
| Daoism | the way to live is the natural way |
| Confucianism | focuses on the five relationships to restore order |
| Legalism | only harsh laws imposed by a strong ruler would ensure order in society |
| Buddhism | religion that offered escape from earthly life |
| Porcelain | smooth, hard, shiny pottery that was in great demand in Europe and United States |
| Monkey | story that describes the pilgrimage of a buddhist monk to India in the 600's |