Instead, between 20 and 40 million Chinese starved to death during the Great Famine at the end of the 1950s and countless others suffered untold persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Nevertheless, the Communist Party continues to enjoy the mandate of the people, a fact that often surprises Western observers.

In a park in Shanghai’s French Concession, Qian Xiuzhen, 93, broke into tears as she explained why she remains an ardent supporter. “My happiest time was after Mao came to power,” she said, adding that there had been a fundamental, and incredibly exciting, shift in the social order.

“People were allowed to express their views. Before, people had no right to speak out. Life was hard before. Almost every normal family faced the difficulties that my family experienced. It was a world for the rich, not for ordinary people,” she said.

In her mid-thirties by the time the Communists came to power, Ms Qian said her early life had been ripped apart by the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. “I feel so sad now when I think about the past. Two of my family were killed during the Japanese invasion. My younger brother was mauled to death by a Japanese dog and my father was shot by Japanese soldiers,” she said.

“At the time, you could only buy 100ml of cooking oil per person a month and there was nowhere to buy rice. People had to queue for long time and they fought for rice for their families. Policemen in the French Concession used to beat up the people scrambling for rice, and if you were lucky enough to get rice, you still might be robbed by other hungry people.”

Then during China’s brief Nationalist government, under Chiang Kai-shek, food was scarce and people starved, she recalled. “People could not buy anything at all to eat,” she said. When Mao arrived in power, she paraded down Shanghai’s main avenue with a basket of flowers.

The South China Morning Post captured the excitement of the moment, a profound moment of change that still resonates in the minds of older Chinese, describing “jubilant scenes” as Mao spoke out from the Great Hall of the People.

Now Ms Qian draws a monthly pension of 1,800 yuan (Pounds180) and sits every day in a leafy park. “In the past, this park was forbidden to Chinese. It was an exclusive park for French children, in this concession area. After the concession was reclaimed, and all the foreigners went home, the park became a public place and is now a nice park and very convenient for us old people.”

For Zhou Xingfen, 84, Chairman Mao improved the education system and gave rights to women to work and study. “In old China, women did not have a say. New China brought us rights. Beforehand we were merely domestic helpers who stayed at home and quite ignorant.”

In the 1960s, more than a third of Chinese were illiterate. By the turn of the century, the figure had fallen to 7 per cent, while GDP rose from 67.9 billion yuan in 1952 to 30,067 billion in 2008.

Now, she boasts, her children have all grown wealthy. “I live in quite a big house. In the past we had a difficult time, the eye operation I just had, which cost 4,000 yuan, would have been unthinkable in the past. We could not afford to go to hospital. Now my children all make good money. They often invite us to eat out, which was impossible in the past,” she said.

In a quite lane in Shanghai, Zhang Weimin, 77, lives with his wife in a run-down shack. Mr Zhang was the son of a wealthy doctor and his fortunes have faded under Communism, reducing him to an impoverished life. However, even he concedes that the Party has made life “more stable and comfortable, especially for old people”.

After the death of his parents, Mr Zhang enrolled in the army, but his problems and responsibilities multiplied after his marriage. “Life was no longer easy for me, there were increased family responsibilities and my living standards decreased accordingly,” he said drily.

Like many Chinese, however, he is accustomed to “chi ku”, or “swallowing bitterness”, and has only praise for the social system established by the CCP. “Before 1949, people who were 60 years-old were a rarity, now you are only a little brother at 60, people normally live up to their 80s and 90s. The change of social system, and the improvement of living standards have prolonged people’s lives.”

While they acknowledge the hardships of the past 60 years, many Chinese prefer to look forward and not to dwell on their painful history. “My father died at 46. My mother starved to death during the Great Famine,” said Kuai Guoying, 86. “We did not get to eat meat. We didn’t even have grain. I had five siblings but only two survived,” she said.

After she was married, and moved to Shanghai, Ms Kuai’s husband was sent to the other end of China, to Yunnan province, as part of a government scheme to develop the countryside. By herself, she had to care for a family of nine, including her husband’s relatives, on the 20 yuan (£2) that he sent back each month.

“I went out, found a job, and got paid over 40 yuan a month. I basically supported the family. My husband later got transferred to Ningbo, Zhejiang. He asked me to move to his place but I refused to go since I had to support the elders at home. When our children were little, they did not have enough food or clothes. We bought back fabric and use to sew at night by the light of the lamp hanging from top of the mosquito net. ”

Now, even Ms Kuai supports the Party, noting that her children have been able to move overseas, to the United States, and that they have enough to eat and enough money to get by. “Life has been much better now, much better. It is thanks to the Party, really.”

“I often say to my husband that life is totally different for our grandchildren, not only from the life we had, but even from the lives their parents lived. They have nothing to worry about, no need to worry about food or clothes. In the past, one had to work really hard to support four people. Now it is just the opposite.

“Life has been much better now, much better, thanks to the Party, really.”