Growing up in the west, the little that I remember being taught about Mao was that he was basically an absolute totalitarian leader in full control over China with universal support.
I obviously don't believe that now, it's ridiculous, but reading about his history it seems that oftentimes the opposite was the case: it seems like he was constantly struggling for power - organizing campaigns with the masses against the bureaucracy and politicians, putting out prog panda campaigns, etc.
How much power and support did he actually have, and why did he always seem on the verge of losing that power?
I obviously don't believe that now, it's ridiculous, but reading about his history it seems that oftentimes the opposite was the case: it seems like he was constantly struggling for power - organizing campaigns with the masses against the bureaucracy and politicians, putting out prog panda campaigns, etc.
It really depended on which years, he was sidelined in the after the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution. The day to day runnings of the country fell to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping during this time period. During that time period he indeed had little control over policy making.
The campaigns you speak of: the mass violence against both the bureacracy and ordinary workers, were a direct attempt for Mao to purge his political opponents and claw his way back into power in the mid 1960s. Those attempts were obviously successful. Liu would eventually die denied medical treatment in prison, while Deng was sentenced to internal exile. The senior party leaders who had the clout and willingness to stand up to him were removed from positions of power. By 1967-68 or so there was no doubt he was once again fully in control of the Communist Party and China as a whole.