Non Fiction Authors From China

"党内不同思想的对立和斗争是经常发生的，这是社会的阶级矛盾和新旧事物的矛盾在党内的反映。党内如果没有矛盾和解决矛盾的思想斗争，党的生命也就停止了。"

"人的概念的每一差异，都应把它看作是客观矛盾的反映。客观矛盾反映入主观的思想，组成了概念的矛盾运动，推动了思想的发展，不断地解决了人们的思想问题。"

"原来矛盾着的各方面，不能孤立地存在。假如没有和它作对的矛盾的一方，它自己这一方就失去了存在的条件。"

"按照唯物辩证法的观点，自然界的变化，主要地是由于自然界内部矛盾的发展。社会的变化，主要地是由于社会内部矛盾的发展，即生产力和生产关系的矛盾，阶级之间的矛盾，新旧之间的矛盾，由于这些矛盾的发展，推动了社会的前进，推动了新旧社会的代谢。唯物辩证法是否排除外部的原因呢？并不排除。唯物辩证法认为外因是变化的条件，内因是变化的根据，外因通过内因而起作用。鸡蛋因得适当的温度而变化为鸡子，但温度不能使石头变为鸡子，因为二者的根据是不同的。各国人民之间的互相影响是时常存在的。在资本主义时代，特别是在帝国主义和无产阶级革命的时代，各国在政治上、经济上和文化上的互相影响和互相激动，是极其巨大的。十月社会主义革命不只是开创了俄国历史的新纪元，而且开创了世界历史的新纪元，影响到世界各国内部的变化，同样地而且还特别深刻地影响到中国内部的变化，但是这种变化是通过了各国内部和中国内部自己的规律性而起的。两军相争，一胜一败，所以胜败，皆决于内因。"

"和形而上学的宇宙观相反，唯物辩证法的宇宙观主张从事物的内部、从一事物对他事物的关系去研究事物的发展，即把事物的发展看做是事物内部的必然的自己的运动，而每一事物的运动都和它的周围其它事物互相联系着和互相影响着。事物发展的根本原因，不是在事物的外部而是在事物的内部，在于事物内部的矛盾性。任何事物内部都有这种矛盾性，因此引起了事物的运动和发展。事物内部的这种矛盾性是事物发展的根本原因，一事物和他事物的互相联系和互相影响则是事物发展的第二位的原因。这样，唯物辩证法就有力地反对了形而上学的机械唯物论和庸俗进化论的外因论或被动论。这是清楚的，单纯的外部原因只能引起事物的机械的运动，即范围的大小，数量的增减，不能说明事物何以有性质上的千差万别及其互相变化。"

"通过实践而发现真理，又通过实践而证实真理和发展真理。从感性认识而能动地发展到理性认识，又从理性认识而能动地指导革命实践，改造主观世界和客观世界。实践、认识、再实践、再认识，这种形式，循环往复以至无穷，而实践和认识之每一循环的内容，都比较地进到了高一级的程度。这就是辩证唯物论的全部认识论，这就是辩证唯物论的知行统一观。"

"如果有了正确的理论，只是把它空谈一阵，束之高阁，并不实行，那末，这种理论再好也是没有意义的。认识从实践始，经过实践得到了理论的认识，还须再回到实践去。认识的能动作用，不但表现于从感性的认识到理性的认识之能动的飞跃，更重要的还须表现于从理性的认识到革命的实践这一个飞跃。抓着了世界的规律性的认识，必须把它再回到改造世界的实践中去，再用到生产的实践、革命的阶级斗争和民族斗争的实践以及科学实验的实践中去。"

"常常听到一些同志在不能勇敢接受工作任务时说出来的一句话：没有把握。为什么没有把握呢？因为他对于这项工作的内容和环境没有规律性的了解，或者他从来就没有接触过这类工作，或者接触得不多，因而无从谈到这类工作的规律性。及至把工作的情况和环境给以详细分析之后，他就觉得比较地有了把握，愿意去做这项工作。如果这个人在这项工作中经过了一个时期，他有了这项工作的经验了，而他又是一个肯虚心体察情况的人，不是一个主观地、片面地、表面地看问题的人，他就能够自己做出应该怎样进行工作的结论，他的工作勇气也就可以大大地提高了。只有那些主观地、片面地和表面地看问题的人，跑到一个地方，不问环境的情况，不看事情的全体（事情的历史和全部现状），也不触到事情的本质（事情的性质及此一事情和其他事情的内部联系），就自以为是地发号施令起来，这样的人是没有不跌交子的。"

"马克思列宁主义认为：认识过程中两个阶段的特性，在低级阶段，认识表现为感性的，在高级阶段，认识表现为论理的，但任何阶段，都是统一的认识过程中的阶段。感性和理性二者的性质不同，但又不是互相分离的，它们在实践的基础上统一起来了。我们的实践证明：感觉到了的东西，我们不能立刻理解它，只有理解了的东西才更深刻地感觉它。感觉只解决现象问题，理论才解决本质问题。这些问题的解决，一点也不能离开实践。无论何人要认识什么事物，除了同那个事物接触，即生活于（实践于）那个事物的环境中，是没有法子解决的。不能在封建社会就预先认识资本主义社会的规律，因为资本主义还未出现，还无这种实践。马克思主义只能是资本主义社会的产物。马克思不能在自由资本主义时代就预先具体地认识帝国主义时代的某些特异的规律，因为帝国主义这个资本主义最后阶段还未到来，还无这种实践，只有列宁和斯大林才能担当此项任务。马克思、恩格斯、列宁、斯大林之所以能够作出他们的理论，除了他们的天才条件之外，主要地是他们亲自参加了当时的阶级斗争和科学实验的实践，没有这后一个条件，任何天才也是不能成功的。"

"马克思主义的哲学辩证唯物论有两个最显著的特点：一个是它的阶级性，公然申明辩证唯物论是为无产阶级服务的；再一个是它的实践性，强调理论对于实践的依赖关系，理论的基础是实践，又转过来为实践服务。判定认识或理论之是否真理，不是依主观上觉得如何而定，而是依客观上社会实践的结果如何而定。真理的标准只能是社会的实践。实践的观点是辩证唯物论的认识论之第一的和基本的观点。"

"人们要想得到工作的胜利即得到预想的结果，一定要使自己的思想合于客观外界的规律性，如果不合，就会在实践中失败。人们经过失败之后，也就从失败取得教训，改正自己的思想使之适合于外界的规律性，人们就能变失败为胜利，所谓“失败者成功之母”，“吃一堑长一智”，就是这个道理。"

"人的社会实践，不限于生产活动一种形式，还有多种其他的形式，阶级斗争，政治生活，科学和艺术的活动，总之社会实际生活的一切领域都是社会的人所参加的。因此，人的认识，在物质生活以外，还从政治生活文化生活中（与物质生活密切联系），在各种不同程度上，知道人和人的各种关系。其中，尤以各种形式的阶级斗争，给予人的认识发展以深刻的影响。在阶级社会中，每一个人都在一定的阶级地位中生活，各种思想无不打上阶级的烙印。"

"马克思主义的道理千条万绪，归根结底就是一句话：“造反有理。”"

"Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together?"

"现代战争，非军队可单独胜任之事，尤其是在游击战斗中，必须民众的力量，才能有利的把握。因为有了民众的帮助，则凡关于运输，救护，即不幸失败、也有方法逃脱或收容，因此，民众没有组织和联络的地方，不可轻易作战。不要侦探，扰乱等，有很大的便利，同时可陷敌于孤立的地方，则于我之便利特多。即不幸失败，也有方法逃脱或收容，因此，民众没有组织和联络的地方，不可轻易作战。"

"I knew the Classics, but disliked them. What I enjoyed were the romances of Old China, and especially stories of rebellions. I read the Yo Fei Chuan, Shui Hu Chuan, Fan T'ang, San Kuo, and Hsi Yu Chi, while still very young, and despite the vigilance of my old teacher, who hated these outlawed books and called them wicked. I used to read them in school, covering them up with a Classic when the teacher walked past. So also did most of my schoolmates. We learned many of the stories almost by heart, and discussed and re-discussed them many times. We knew more of them than the old men of the village, who also loved them and used to exchange stories with us. I believe that perhaps I was much influenced by such books, read at an impressionable age."

"鲁迅在中国的价值，据我看要算是中国的第一等圣人。孔夫子是封建社会的圣人，鲁迅则是现代中国的圣人。我们为了永久纪念他，在延安成立了鲁迅图书馆，在延长开办了鲁迅师范学校，使后来的人们可以想见他的伟大。"

"积极防御，又叫攻势防御，又叫决战防御。消极防御，又叫专守防御，又叫单纯防御。消极防御实际上是假防御，只有积极防御才是真防御，才是为了反攻和进攻的防御。据我所知，任何一本有价值的军事书，任何一个比较聪明的军事家，而且无论古今中外，无论战略战术，没有不反对消极防御的。只有最愚蠢的人，或者最狂妄的人，才捧了消极防御当法宝。然而世上偏有这样的人，做出这样的事。"

"我们需要的是热烈而镇定的情绪，紧张而有秩序的工作。"

"江山如此多娇，引无数英雄竞折腰。惜秦皇汉武，略输文采；唐宗宋祖，稍逊风骚。一代天骄，成吉思汗，只识弯弓射大雕。俱往矣，数风流人物，还看今朝。"

"自从帝国主义这个怪物出世之后，世界的事情就联成一气了，要想割开也不可能了。我们中华民族有同自己的敌人血战到底的气概，有在自力更生的基础上光复旧物的决心，有自立于世界民族之林的能力。但是这不是说我们可以不需要国际援助；不，国际援助对于现代一切国家一切民族的革命斗争都是必要的。古人说：“春秋无义战。”于今帝国主义则更加无义战，只有被压迫民族和被压迫阶级有义战。全世界一切由人民起来反对压迫者的战争，都是义战。"

"马克思主义者看问题，不但要看到部分，而且要看到全体。一个虾蟆坐在井里说：“天有一个井大。”这是不对的，因为天不止一个井大。如果它说：“天的某一部分有一个井大。”这是对的，因为合乎事实。我们说，红军在一个方面（保持原有阵地的方面）说来是失败了，在另一个方面（完成长征计划的方面）说来是胜利了。敌人在一个方面（占领我军原有阵地的方面）说来是胜利了，在另一个方面（实现“围剿”“追剿”计划的方面）说来是失败了。这样说才是恰当的，因为我们完成了长征。"

"Children are the masters of the new society."

"我们三年来从斗争中所得的战术，真是和古今中外的战术都不同。用我们的战术，群众斗争的发动是一天比一天扩大的，任何强大的敌人是奈何我们不得的。我们的战术就是游击的战术。大要说来是：‘分兵以发动群众，集中以应付敌人。’‘敌进我退，敌驻我扰，敌疲我打，敌退我追。’‘固定区域的割据，用波浪式的推进政策。强敌跟追，用盘旋式的打圈子政策。’‘很短的时间，很好的方法，发动很大的群众。’这种战术正如打网，要随时打开，又要随时收拢。打开以争取群众，收拢以应付敌人。三年以来，都是用的这种战术。"

"一九二七年革命失败以后，革命的主观力量确实大为削弱了。剩下的一点小小的力量，若仅依据某些现象来看，自然要使同志们（作这样看法的同志们）发生悲观的念头。但若从实质上看，便大大不然。这里用得着中国的一句老话：“星星之火，可以燎原。”这就是说，现在虽只有一点小小的力量，但是它的发展会是很快的。它在中国的环境里不仅是具备了发展的可能性，简直是具备了发展的必然性，这在五卅运动及其以后的大革命运动已经得了充分的证明。我们看事情必须要看它的实质，而把它的现象只看作入门的向导，一进了门就要抓住它的实质，这才是可靠的科学的分析方法。"

"茫茫九派流中国，沉沉一线穿南北。烟雨莽苍苍，龟蛇锁大江。黄鹤知何去？剩有游人处。把酒酹滔滔，心潮逐浪高！"

"独立寒秋，湘江北去，橘子洲头。看万山红遍，层林尽染；漫江碧透，百舸争流。鹰击长空，鱼翔浅底，万类霜天竞自由。怅寥廓，问苍茫大地，谁主沉浮？"

"The Chinese revolution is indisputably one of the most important events of twentieth-century history, and its doctrine, known as Maoism, has accordingly become one of the chief elements in the contemporary war of ideas, irrespective of its intellectual value. Measured by European standards the ideological documents of Maoism, and especially the theoretical writings of Mao himself, appear in fact extremely primitive and clumsy, sometimes even childish; in comparison, even Stalin gives the impression of a powerful theorist. However, judgements of this kind must be made with some caution. Those who, like the present writer, do not know Chinese and have only a scanty and superficial knowledge of China's history and culture doubtless cannot grasp the full meaning of these texts, the various associations and allusions perceptible to a reader acquainted with Chinese thought; in this respect one must rely on the views of experts, who, however, do not always agree."

"The Cultural Revolution that broke out in 1966 is significant in the context of a discussion of Mao’s thought for several reasons. First (and as with the theory and practice of the Hundred Flowers movement), Mao indicated his willingness to depart from a central principle of Leninism by not only bunching an attack on the Party but by mobilizing non-Party elements as the spearhead of that attack. For Lenin, a communist party represented the vanguard of the working class, its most advanced and politically conscious section. In the Leninist conception, there is no suggestion that the vanguard party might itself become an agent of retrogressive ideas, policies, and actions that could threaten the attainment of the revolutionary goals of the working class. Mao, however, made no assumption that the Party was above and beyond the struggles within society; contradictions and ideologies of a class nature were inevitably reflected within the Party, and it could thus be inhabited by negative and counter-revolutionary elements. Such elements had to be struggled against, and if their position within the Party was so powerful that they could not be dislodged by an intra-party struggle, then it would be necessary to mobilize progressive forces from the wider community to defeat them. During the years of the Cultural Revolution, Mao led a coalition of nonparty elements (students, youth, the military, sections of the working class) in his attack on those within the Party deemed to have taken “the capitalist road.” However, while Mao demonstrated a rather different appreciation of the vanguard status of the communist patty than had Lenin, he would not, despite its widespread failings, permit its complete destruction."

"It is clear that Mao regarded a sinified Marxism as a union between Marxism’s universal laws and the particular “laws” that described the characterizing regularities of the Chinese context. How did he perceive this theoretical system as a “guide to action”? It must be stressed that Mao did not regard it as incorporating the formulae for automatic and necessarily correct policy responses to the various political, economic, and military contingencies that might arise in the course of revolution. The function of a sinified Marxism was to facilitate as accurate an interpretation of the Chinese context as possible. With this information, the CCP’s leaders would be in a position to formulate strategies and tactics commensurate with the objective possibilities and limitations of the concrete situation. Such strategies and tactics could only be regarded as appropriate in their conception rather than as necessarily correct. Having a clear and hopefully accurate picture of the historical situation would act as a guide to action by ruling out inappropriate policy responses and presenting certain strategies and tactics as preferable or even obvious. Here again, the influence of the inductive method is revealed in Mao’s method of formulating policies: Under no circumstances could one arbitrarily formulate strategies or tactics a priori, but only via a careful analysis of the characteristics of a historically specific situation."

"Mao thus perceived “politics” as a vitally important factor in the unfolding of history and the realization of historical goals. However, he did not perceive “politics” as autonomous from other historically generative elements within the “economic” realm of society’s “basis” (the forces and relations of production); rather, the effectivity of “politics” to accelerate the historical process was circumscribed by the “economic” realm, just as the further development of the “economic” realm was dependent on developments in the political realm. This mutual interdependence within the “basis” of society indicated the importance of political organization and action, but indicated also the objective limitations interdependence created. Guided by this framework, Mao was prepared to exploit the possibility for political action to its limit but was, during the Yan’an period, very mindful of not rushing ahead of the constraints of the objective situation. It was, nevertheless, on the possibility of exploiting the potential of “politics” to achieve short-term historical goals that Mao premised his confidence in the realization of “inevitable” long-term historical goals."

"Mao was thus not content to lead a purely rural revolution, and he strove where possible to alter the sociological composition of the Party and military in favor of the working class and during the period of the Jiangxi Soviet to construct its embryonic state institutions in ways that expressed the power of the working class. While he put great store in the peasants as the “main force" of the Chinese Revolution, he was adamant that it would not be their consciousness which dictated the long-term direction of the revolution, for this could only serve to reinforce economic, political, and cultural impediments to the modernist transformation of China's society. Mao’s frequent references from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s to the necessity of working class leadership of the Chinese Revolution are therefore signposts indicating not only his conception of the future course and strategy of the revolution but the future of China itself. These signposts are more than sufficient to problematize the conventional accounts of Mao’s approach to China’s revolution and the orthodoxy of that approach. It remains to be seen, however, whether those who have constructed the spurious image of Mao as peasant revolutionary will choose to notice them and rethink this central dimension of Mao’s thought."

"Mao’s understanding of the Marxist theory of social change has frequently been misrepresented. It is often suggested that Mao turned his back on the materialist philosophy of Marxism, glorifying rather the capacity of ideas to transform society. He is thus depicted as an “idealist” or “voluntarist,” one who regarded the ideological-political superstructure of society and struggles within it as the primary source of social change; the economic base, which Marx had attributed with this role, became in Mao’s mind pliantly malleable to pressures for change from the superstructure. Yet, a careful exploration of this dimension of his thought does not bear out this interpretation. While his views on the capacity of politics, ideology, and culture to contribute to social change did go beyond that of a mechanical and reductionist materialism and did vary, his general perspective remained an economists one; he continued to regard the economic foundation of society—forces and relations of production—as the ultimately determining factor in history."

"Mao Zedong openly declared that "man must conquer nature," setting loose a devastating onslaught on the natural world that transitioned seamlessly from clear-cuts under communism to mega-dams under capitalism."

"On September 9, 1976, Mao succumbed to his illness, leaving his successors with his achievements and premonitions, with the legacy of his grandiosity and brutality, of great vision distorted by self-absorption. He left behind a China unified as it had not been for centuries, with most vestiges of the original regime eliminated, clearing away the underbrush for reforms never intended by the Chairman. If China remains united and emerges as a twenty-first-century superpower, Mao may hold, for many Chinese, the same ambiguous yet respected role in Chinese history as Qin Shihuang, the Emperor he personally revered: the dynasty-founding autocrat who dragged China into the next era by conscripting its population for a massive national exertion, and whose excesses were later acknowledged by some as a necessary evil. For others, the tremendous suffering Mao inflicted on his people will dwarf his achievements. Two strands of policy had been competing with each other through the turbulences of Mao’s rule. There was the revolutionary thrust that saw China as a moral and political force, insisting on dispensing its unique precepts by example to an awestruck world. There was the geopolitical China coolly assessing trends and manipulating them to its own advantage. There was a China seeking coalitions for the first time in its history but also the one defiantly challenging the entire world. Mao had taken a war-wracked country and maneuvered it between competing domestic factions, hostile superpowers, an ambivalent Third World, and suspicious neighbors. He managed to have China participate in each overlapping concentric circle but commit itself to none. China had survived wars, tensions, and doubts while its influence grew, and in the end, it became an emerging superpower whose Communist form of government survived the collapse of the Communist world. Mao achieved this at horrendous cost by relying on the tenacity and perseverance of the Chinese people, using their endurance and cohesion, which so often exasperated him, as the bedrock of his edifice."

"Mao’s study, a medium-sized room, was across the hallway. Manuscripts lined bookshelves along every wall; books covered the table and the floor; it looked more the retreat of a scholar than the audience room of the all-powerful leader of the world’s most populous nation. On my first few visits a simple wood-frame bed stood in one corner; later it disappeared. Our first sight was of a semicircle of easy chairs, all with brownish slipcovers as if a thrifty middle-class family wanted to protect upholstery too expensive to replace. Between each pair of chairs stood a V-shaped coffee table, covered with a white napkin, fitting into the angle made by adjoining arm rests. The tables next to Mao, being generally piled with books, had just enough room for the ever-present cup of jasmine tea. Two standing lamps with unusually large circular shades stood behind the chairs; in front of Mao, to his right, was a spittoon. When one entered the room, Mao rose from one of the easy chairs; on the last couple of visits he required two assistants’ help, but he never failed so to greet his visitors. One usually cannot tell when meeting a famous and powerful leader to what extent one is impressed by his personality or awed by his status and repute. In Mao’s case there could be no doubt. Except for the suddenness of the summons there was no ceremony. The interior appointments were as modest as the exterior. Mao just stood there, surrounded by books, tall and powerfully built for a Chinese. He fixed the visitor with a smile both penetrating and slightly mocking, warning by his bearing that there was no point in seeking to deceive this specialist in the foibles and duplicity of man. I have met no one, with the possible exception of Charles de Gaulle, who so distilled raw, concentrated willpower. He was planted there with a female attendant close by to help steady him (and on my last visits to hold him up); he dominated the room—not by the pomp that in most states confers a degree of majesty on the leaders, but by exuding in almost tangible form the overwhelming drive to prevail."

"[Mao] has played politics with Asian cunning. ... [and] has always been a master at concealing his true intention. ... I was always on my guard with him."

"Mao was wrong about the unique nature of his tactics. In their emphasis on isolating towns by dominating the surrounding countryside, they derived directly from the methods of the horse peoples who had been such persistent enemies of China for nearly two thousand years. But there were novel features in Mao’s methods: first, his belief in the ‘classless’ – ‘soldiers, bandits, robbers, beggars, and prostitutes’ –were grist to the revolution’s mill, ‘people capable of fighting very bravely and, if properly fed, a revolutionary force’; second, his perception that in the face of a more powerful enemy a war could nonetheless be won if one had the patience to avoid seeking a decision until the enemy’s frustration and exhaustion robbed him of the chance of victory. This theory of ‘protracted war’ will be remembered as Mao’s principal contribution to military theory. After his triumph over Chiang Kai-shek in China, it was adopted by the Vietnamese in their wars, first against the French, and then against the Americans."

"A ninety-year-old Du Bois was hopeful, too, in another way. "Today, the United States is fighting world progress, progress which must be toward socialism and against colonialism," he said, speaking to seven hundred students and faculty at Howard University in April 1958. Later in the year, having gotten his passport back, Du Bois toured Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Communist China, where he happily met Chairman Mao Tse-tung. When Mao started musing about the "diseased psychology" of African Americans, showing that he was attuned to the latest racist social science, Du Bois interjected. Blacks were not diseased psychologically; they lacked incomes, Du Bois explained, inciting a debate and a fusillade of questions from Mao. When Du Bois expressed some of his failures as an activist, Mao interjected. Activists only failed when they stopped struggling. "This, I gather," Mao said, "you have never done.""

"Today's mic-hogging, fast-talking, contentious young (and old) lefties continue to hawk little books and pamphlets on revolution, always with choice words or documents from Marx, Mao, even Malcolm. But I've never seen a broadside with "A Black Feminist Statement or even the writings of Angela Davis or June Jordan or Barbara Omolade or Flo Kennedy or Audre Lorde or bell hooks or Michelle Wallace, at least not from the groups who call themselves leftist. These women's collective wisdom has provided the richest insights into American radicalism's most fundamental questions: How can we build a multiracial movement? Who are the working class and what do they desire? How do we resolve the Negro Question and the Woman Question? What is freedom?"

"Mao is dead. Very dead. The indicator of how dead he is happens to be how much he is now cited as an “authority” for the most un-Maoist of endeavors. China is not undergoing a Maoist or even a Mao revival. It is undergoing a tragedy-to-farce progression (Marx, yes): Mao’s first coming was in many ways a tragedy, insofar as he tried to build socialism in China. He failed so miserably that he now can be called upon as an incantation to build a variety of viciously undemocratic capitalism that is so far from his own life endeavor that it would be farcically laughable if it weren’t so depressingly crass."

"Mao’s China has contradictory legacies. Mao’s party-state copied a lot of techniques of power from Stalin’s Soviet Union, heavily relying on the repressive and bureaucratic apparatus to silence intellectuals and destroy careers and lives. But Mao’s party-state also departed from Stalin’s one in significant way. Besides top-down repression, Mao also resorted over and over again to mass mobilization to achieve social control, letting the zealous and even hysterical masses to help the Party exterminate its enemies. While the kulaks in the Soviet Union were taken care of by firing squads, China’s “landlords” and “rich peasants” were humiliated in public trials, many of which led to mob violence and death. Mao’s preference for mass mobilization, added to his suspicion of a state bureaucracy over which had lost personal control, ignited the Cultural Revolution that created an unintended legacy yet to be fully understood. The experience of underprivileged kids, including those previously persecuted as bad elements, being encouraged to assault cadres and seize power from local party organs, must have generated a lasting impact and formed collective memories in Chinese society. Cadres' and their chindren's experience of being attacked by rebellious Red Guard factions must have planted the seed for a long-lasting nightmare of the party-state elite."

"Even Mao's casual remark, "Sweet potato tastes good, I like it," became a slogan seen everywhere in the countryside."

"In Los Angeles they [the Black Panthers would run classes every Saturday in "political education" in which their members had to memorize sections of Mao's little red book. If they failed to memorize their assignment, they were beaten up. The same thing would happen if they failed to sell their weekly quota of their party newspaper. The Panthers picked up the Maoist slogan "All power grows out of the barrel of a gun" and made an ideological fetish out of it. That phrase has to be one of the stupidest things Mao ever said, because what power really grows out of is the organized consciousness of millions of people. At some point guns may become important tactically in the revolutionary process in some countries, but that isn't where power comes from-and a good thing, too, because revolutionaries are always going to be outgunned by the forces defending the old order."

"He [Chairman Mao] appears to me as a father and he himself considered me as a son. [We had] very good relations. The only problem was that on many occasions, when official dinners were held, Chairman Mao always used to bring me to his side. So, then as Chinese tradition, Chairman Mao himself would use his chopsticks to put some food in my plate. So, in a way it was a great honour, but in a way I feel little fear...he coughing too much, a chain smoker, so I might get some germs [laughing]."

"Mao Zedong! Amazing man! Imagine him and his followers wandering through China day and night, fighting for their goal. What an effort. He has also written beautiful prose and excellent poems."

"Mao began to write, turned to journalism, and found himself on the threshold of politics. With his Chinese practicality, he put an advertisement in the Changsha newspaper, asking that "hardened and determined" young men interested in patriotism and politics get in touch with him. Changsha became too small for him. He had seven dollars. He bought shoes and an umbrella, and set out to see the world. His instincts were predominantly nationalist at first; he wanted to free China from foreign domination. Imperialism, he proceeded to see, was inextricably associated with capitalism, and he became a socialist. His revolutionary career began in 1927, when he was appointed president of the first Chinese Peasants Union; his rise was rapid, and by 1930 he was chairman of the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Committee. Then came the Long March; the great years began. Chiang Kai-shek offered a reward of $250,000 (Chinese) for him, dead or alive; his first wife and sister were caught and executed. His present wife- a typical enough touch- learned many details of his life for the first time when, in her company, he dictated his autobiography to Edgar Snow. She was severely wounded during the Long March, when he walked 6,000 miles."

"Mao Tse-tung was born in 1893 in a village in Hunan. His father was a peasant, and he began to work at the age of six on the small family farm. His mother was a considerate woman, his father exceptionally severe; Mao records that he was never allowed eggs or meat, though the other farm boys had these luxuries occasionally. He had remarkable strength of character and ambition, and a fierce urgency for education; he struggled to go to school, and at seventeen tramped alone to the near-by city of Changsha where there was an academy. Came a tremendous event: where he saw for the first time a map of the world. He pored over it gluttonously. He writes, "I went to the library in the morning when it opened. At noon I paused only long enough to buy and consume two rice cakes, which were my daily lunch. I stayed in the library every day reading until it closed." He studied Adam Smith, Darwin, Spencer, Mill. One book that influenced him was Great Heroes of the World, which contained biographies of Napoleon, Peter the Great, Rousseau. He read about the American Revolution and came across a pregnant sentence: "After eight years of difficult war, Washington won a victory and built up his nation.""

"The leaders of the Chinese Soviets are Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh. They are associated so closely that for a long time people thought they were the same man; one heard of the famous "Red general" Mao-Chu, or Chu-Mao. Mao Tse-tung (pronounced roughly "Mow Tzuh-doong"), the chairman of the Central Executive Committee, is political chief. General Chu Teh ("Joo Duh") is military leader. An odd point is that "Chu Teh" literally means- Red Virtue! The two are intimately close friends, but differ widely in character and attributes. They complement each other nicely. Mao is a philosopher, an intellectual; Chu Teh is an executive, a soldier. Mao, I heard it said, is the Red brain, Chu Teh the Red heart. A calm man, of peasant stock, Mao is a builder, a dreamer, a creator; he has never been outside China. Chu Teh, much warmer in temperament, less aloof, has traveled widely; he has great human quality, and people talk of him as they might talk of Lincoln. Mao could hold his own anywhere among Chinese intellectuals; Chu Teh talks little. Both have a considerable sense of humor, though Mao's is more sardonic; both have highly modern minds. Mao, perhaps, is the greater man; but he would not be where he is had not Chu Teh developed and led his unique army. I have heard Mao described as equal intellectually to Lenin."

"As late as 1947, Mao insisted that his program corresponded to that of Sun. Until December of that year, Mao insisted that his 'new democracy' would protect the 'bourgeoisie' and 'their industry and commerce.' Because of China's backwardness, he would continue to support capitalist development and ensure that both public and private, capital and labor, interests would benefit from the revolution."