Mao Zedong means many different things to different people. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Chairman's death, aged 82, and while complex political considerations mean official memorials have been low-key, his influence remains very much alive among China's 1.3 billion people.

In the hilltop village of Gushui in northwestern Shaanxi province, a toothless farmer gazes up at a larger-than-life plaster figure of the Chairman that holds pride of place in a temple complex. A young businessman saunters forward to look at the statue which is flanked by two other stalwarts of the party pantheon: Zhu De, the chief of Mao's military, and Zhou Enlai, his long-serving Prime Minister.

Zhu Zelin, 52, is caretaker at the temple that lies a hard drive along twisting roads from the city of Yan'an where Mao made his base after the Long March and from where he orchestrated the war that won China for the party. He said: “Without Mao there would be no new China. He won this land for us.''

It is a sentiment that has received an ambivalent response from Mao’s heirs at the pinnacle of the Communist Party ruling hierarchy. To accord him a god-like status contradicts the basic tenets of Marxism but to view him as a mere mortal is to put at risk the prestige, even the survival, of the party.

Mr Zhu tries to portray the temple as more of a memorial hall than a place of worship. Visitors are not allowed to burn incense before the statue, for example. He said: “That would be like a religion.''

Many who come are disappointed at the restrictions. They offer gaudy plastic flowers and packets of the cigarettes that Mao chain-smoked. One cigarette is tucked between his pink-painted plaster fingers.

Reverence for the late Chairman is ubiquitous outside the intelligentsia.

Cao Shengan grins his toothless smile. ''He was a great man. He rescued China. We will remember him forever.''

Mr Cao is among China’s poorest farmers and yet last year he scraped together his savings to make the journey to the mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in Beijing where Mao’s embalmed remains lie on display in a crystal sarcophagus.

Mr Cao is far from alone in his sentiments. Thousands queue every morning — except for Mondays — to file past the corpse, its waxy features lit by an eerie yellow spotlight and the once-bulky body covered by a party flag. Pilgrims spoke as if with one voice. One 50-year-old man from northeastern China said: “I am here because I must pay my respects to our founding father.”

The crowds emerge from their moment beside the Great Helmsman into a cacophony of commerce. Setting aside their awe, farmers from rural backwaters across China pore over Mao medallions, Mao lights, even Mao nail clippers.

The frenzy retains elements of the personality cult that Mao fostered in life. But this is a new form of worship that has grown up around the man that so many Chinese venerate for liberating China in 1949.

Xu Youyu is a distinguished scholar and political commentator. He remembered a craze in the early 1990s when taxi drivers dangled a Mao medallion from the car mirror to ward off accidents and bring wealth. He said: “A decade ago Mao was seen as a talisman against bad fortune. Today Mao is becoming more popular because people find his thoughts strike a sympathetic chord.”

Scholars note that Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, has nurtured a shift back to the left, emphasising old-fashioned Maoist values of equality in an era when the well-off are becoming more prosperous, the poor are being left behind and resentment is brewing. Mr Xu said that this quiet swing has been an important influence in bolstering Mao’s importance.

More important though is nostalgia for what many Chinese remember as a golden age when life was simple and everyone was poor. He said: “There are lots of dissatisfactions in today’s society, lots of inequality. Many have forgotten the pain and disaster that Mao caused and instead they imagine the past as perfect and beautiful.”

Most of those shuffling past Mao’s body are easily identified by their dress as visitors from out of town. Many even spend three yuan (20 pence) on a single yellow chrysanthemum wrapped in Cellophane which they lay against a huge pile at the foot of a white statue of a seated Mao in the entrance hall of the mausoleum.

China issued its ruling on Mao's legacy in 1981 after two years of fierce debate. The party's verdict was that Mao's achievements outweighed his mistakes by 70 per cent - a recognition of Mao's disastrous 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Nie Yuanzi, dubbed one of the Five Red Guard leaders, was filled with admiration for Mao. She remembers watching him sitting in a corner of the Tiananmen Rostrum before one of his rallies. ''I wanted to ask him questions but I didn't dare, no one dared. He seemed very alone but we were afraid to say something wrong.''

Her views changed radically after she - along with other revolutionaries - fell victim to one of his purges and spent 17 years in jail. ''I despise him for his crimes but I cannot deny his achievements.''

Geremie Barme, Professor of Asian History at the Australian National University, says it is little surprise that Mao appeals to so many Chinese. ''He set the parameters for becoming a modern China. This is powerful stuff. He is in the fabric - like a public resource, like water or air. He is part of the fabric of being.''

In Gushui, Yu Yangqu may not know why he reveres Mao, only that he does. He said: ''I felt like I should come and take a look. After all, he will be a god one day.''

LIFE AND TIMES OF A POLITICAL ICON

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