Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1943 until his death in 1976. The book's 'author' in the minimal sense that every quotation comes from his speeches, essays, or letters; in the larger sense that his political authority made the book possible. Mao's own writing was varied — theoretical essays, military analyses, political reports, and letters — but the book distills him to his most declarative and militant register.

PLA Marshal, Minister of Defense from 1959, Mao's named successor at the 1969 Ninth Congress. Commissioned the book as PLA political-education tool; wrote the 1965 foreword calling Mao Zedong Thought a 'spiritual atom bomb.' Died September 1971 in plane crash over Mongolia, officially while fleeing after a failed coup. His foreword was excised from subsequent editions.

Mao's fourth wife (married 1939), former actress, and most prominent member of the Gang of Four. Took charge of cultural policy during the Cultural Revolution; oversaw the eight 'revolutionary model operas.' The book's chapters on art, culture, and struggle provided doctrinal authority for her purges of traditional Chinese cultural institutions. Arrested October 1976, sentenced to death (commuted), died 1991.

Radicalized student movement mobilized by Mao starting August 1966 to attack the 'Four Olds' and purge 'capitalist-roaders' from the Party. Carried the Little Red Book as emblem and rhetorical weapon; cited it at struggle sessions; used its authority to justify violence against teachers, intellectuals, and officials. Factional rivalries led to armed conflicts 1967-68; most were dispersed to the countryside in the 1968 'Up to the Mountains' campaign.

President of China 1959-1968, second-ranking Party member, and Mao's chief rival during the Cultural Revolution. Identified as the 'number one capitalist-roader' and 'China's Khrushchev'; purged in 1967, died in detention November 12, 1969, not officially acknowledged until posthumous rehabilitation in 1980. His fate demonstrates what the Little Red Book authorized: even the state's president could be destroyed by quotation-wielding Red Guards.

CCP General Secretary before the Cultural Revolution, purged twice (1967, 1976), returned to power after Mao's death as the architect of Reform and Opening. His post-1978 program quietly retired the Little Red Book. Deng's 1981 'Resolution' on Party history — the 70/30 assessment of Mao — provided the doctrinal framework for preserving Mao's legitimacy while repudiating the Cultural Revolution.

US Black revolutionary organization founded 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California. Required member study of the Little Red Book 1968-69; sold copies in Oakland to fund breakfast-for-children programs. The Panthers' adoption of the book signaled the global circulation of Maoism beyond China and its connection to Black radical politics in the US.

700+ million Chinese citizens during the Cultural Revolution, many of whom carried the book on their bodies, recited from it daily, and used it as a loyalty signifier. The book's mass-production was simultaneously its reception: every citizen was its reader, willingly or under compulsion. Survivor memoirs provide the most detailed accounts of what this lived experience was like.