A reading on Mao Zedong

Date: January 18. 2007

Satya Merugu's notes. Some statements are quoted directly from the publication.

A biography of Mao (1893-1976) by Ross Terrill

According to the writer, Mao Zedong (pronounced as Mao Tse Tung) had a personal fire in him; he was confident of himself which eventually led to triumph of his peasant army (Red Army). The situation in China was so fluid with communists (Russia supported), Nationalists, war lords, bandits, Methodists, foreign adventurers, etc. that the man of granite had a unique chance to crash through and change society. Luck played a critical role in Mao's emergence as national leader. Japan's attack on China weakened Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist dictator at the time. His distance from Russia helped him from elimination from CCP leadership.

He was the first to take a gun to countryside and in war he did well by virtue of two traits: flexibility in tactics (guerrilla warfare) and an ability to propagate his strategy to his followers.

His hatred of the right ensured that he would jump now and then forward the left. This natural sense of balance – ancient Chinese belief in the duality of soft “yin” and hard “yang”-served him well in his prime years.

He was bright and taught himself a lot from books, well separated in hinterland of China (Hunan) and was emotionally detached to analyze his experiences in Old China.

He led a revolution that killed Old China, pushed country into a process of transformation and restored independence and status in the world of oldest and largest polity. As a unifier of Chinese people he ranks with first emperors of Sui dynasty (sixth century A.D.) and Ming dynasty (fourteenth century A.D.). The era of Mao's rule was one of Chinese histories notable eras of political unification. Dialects melted. Schools were standardized and “New China” stamp on children was enforced. China's twenty nine provinces interdependence increased to an unprecedented level.

As a doctrinist, he ranks equal to Confucius and other sages who have shaped Chinese life. He lived long enough to the Marx-Lenin-Stalin rolled into one of the Chinese Revolution. Mao was not one, but five-gadfly peasant organizer who lit fires of revolt all over China, military commander, poet with riotous romanticism, philosopher who gave a new moral Oriental form to Maxism, Head of a government which was the biggest bureaucracy on earth.

Mao was a man of action and of vision, a semi-intellectual. This kind of actor-thinker did not like the abstract intellectual. He loved China, took pride in Chinese history but disliked technology and was not good at economics.

Peasant revolution and anti-imperialism were the twin pillars of Mao's doctrine. He did not like stability and the fixed laws of European Marxism. According to writer, Mao did not see socialism as a science, but softened it into social morality.

Mao's vision and passion were limited to China for most of his life. Other countries mattered to him only so far as they either interfered with China or possessed ideas and experience from which China could learn. But Mao was the chief personal symbol of anti-colonialism to the Third World during 1950s and 1960s.

From the depths of his Chineseness he drew surprises on the world. The two main ones are breakdown of alliance with Russia ending World Communist unity and opening door to America creating a triangular world.

Mao's government over a quarter of century made a new China more socially just than old China in three ways. Rewards came mainly according to work and hence the distribution of China's national product became one of the most egalitarian in the world. Basic tools of advancement – health care and a simple education – were provided to all. Under Mao, China took large steps of social modernization – the most potent form of modernization – that can be considered fundamental in nature though the rate of growth was not that rapid.

According to writer, Mao was not all flawless. He had strong prejudices and was inconsistent at times. He was a great leader but in many ways not an admirable character. He zigzagged because he did not follow any particular implementation policy. China sadly lacks some of the rosy traits promised by Mao's socialism. Mao wanted a “flourishing culture: for new China. But political propaganda cowed the writers and teachers. He was less good as a manager than he had been as an iconoclast, teacher and warrior.

Mao's career was not cut from a single cloth, The late Mao – after de-Stalinization in Europe - was enormously different from the Mao who won the power. Mao, who had “revised” Marx and Lenin, should have realized that Maoism too would have to be revised as social conditions in China changed with success of Maoism. He could not face the loss of authority that the crumbling of his ideology would bring.

He saw economic development only in terms of national power, not in terms of individual well-being – a growing pre-occupation in China.

According to writer, Deng Xiaoping, driving force of the Chinese government, years after Mao's death, had said that Mao was 70 percent good and 30 percent bad. In private, many Chinese hated Mao.

The modern citizens of tomorrow will not need a great leader. They will honor Mao as a great unifier of China.

About the author:

Ross Terrill, author of 800,000,000: The Real China and other works, has drawn on his journeys through China, going back to 1964, and interviews with many people who knew Maom as well as eight years of research while on Harvard faculty, to produce the publication Mao.