They made an odd couple. In the years that followed the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and the formation in 1912 of the Republic of China, both emerged from disparate backgrounds as progressive young men "without a penny to their names, but genuinely concerned with matters of the world." Both were emboldened by political ideals to reform China under the banner of the newly-formed Communist Party that followed immediately upon the great wave of the 1919 May Fourth Movement. The entire history of the Chinese Communist Party from the early 1920s into the 1970s might be told as the history of the working relationship between these two men.

Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai differed greatly, however, in terms of temperament and education. Mao was born in Xiangtan, a remote and rustic village in the hinterland of Hunan Province. The peasant son of a simple-minded family tyrant with a dictatorial personality, Mao grew to detest his father. In boyhood he hated authority, and applied all his resources to the practice of undermining first the dictates of his father and, over time, all forms of provincial authority. Zhou Enlai, in contrast, was raised by a nurturing adoptive mother. Without a father to emulate or challenge, Zhou was mild-mannered and skillfully adept at dealing with people from all walks of life. At heart, he believed in the "middle way"—the ultimate Confucian ideal. If Mao was by nature a disruptive, provocative personality, Zhou was ever the diplomat, supremely poised, smooth, and charming.