A talk with college students

My Personal Views on Chairman Mao

May 28,2023

by Yang Fei (in Changsha)

Freshmen who have just arrived at Hunan University may find that this is a place full of the Chairman elements: a huge statue of Chairman Mao in the Red East Square, a Chairman Mao handwriting in the Loving Dusk Pavilion, a ten-story-high Chairman Mao head sculpture towering over Orange Isle, and the driving console of many cabs are decorated with Chairman Mao amulet, not to mention that there is a required course for all freshmen, the Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.

But many people find on the Internet that comments on Chairman Mao are at two extremes, with Mao haters and Mao fans almost at each other's throats. It seems that the official evaluation by the Chinese government is relatively fair: the merits and demerits of Chairman Mao are seven to three. We all know the merits of Chairman Mao, but the specifics of the demerits are rarely stated in textbooks. Here I would like to share my views on Chairman Mao with you students.

People need to eat to survive. Food, clothing, housing and transportation are the first elements. This is common sense for a materialist. I think the most important criterion for evaluating a leader is whether he improved the lives of the people during his time in office. I put special emphasis on the words "the time in office".
　

Image above, monthly soap coupons, Xiangfan City, Hubei province, China, 1971

By this standard, Chairman Mao failed. If we don't count the three-year-hardship period from 1959 to 1961, the year of Mao’s death, 1976, was probably the worst time for the Chinese people in terms of living standard. According to an official document, the national economy was on the verge of collapse at that time.

Chairman Mao ruled China for 27 years from 1949 to 1976 and made the lives of ordinary people so impoverished, and it is not logical to say that he was an excellent leader. Whenever someone misses Chairman Mao, I always want to ask: are you willing to go back to the days when supplies were limited, available only by tickets and coupons, and with a long queue to buy?

I was only six years old in 1976 and didn’t know much, but I remember that there was a huge shortage of goods. The supply of rice, cooking oil, pork, cloth, tofu and even soap were rationed with coupons and stamps. On days when those goods were available, we had to get up early and queue up, otherwise you couldn't get anything. Housing conditions were also very poor. My sister and mother and I were cramming in a hut of only a few dozen square feet. Only after Chairman Mao's death did our family's life slowly begin to improve.

Suppose a leader said, "Under my rule, the country will have atomic bombs and satellites, and its international status will be greatly improved, but your life will suffer, and some people will die of hunger. After I die, your standard of living will slowly improve." Would you support such a leader? It should be pointed out that the improvement of the people's living standards in China after 1976 was not the credit of Chairman Mao, but because Deng Xiaoping corrected Chairman Mao's erroneous practices thoroughly that China embarked on the road of economic development.

Image above, People's Daily’s report on rice yield in the Great Leap Forward movement, 1958. People's Daily is the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The headline reads: Early season rice yield of 36,900 jin per mu in Macheng City, Hubei province. This equates to 277 tons per hectare. For comparison, China's average rice yield in 2021 was about 7 tons per hectare. This newspaper report was clearly a big lie.

Perhaps you may ask: Why was people's life so bad under Chairman Mao's leadership? This has to begin with Chairman Mao's policy of governing after he established New China in 1949. Without going into the small ones, let's look at some large events:

1950 - 1953, Movement to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea
1957 – 1958, Anti-rightist Movement
1958 – 1959, People's Commune Movement and Great Leap Forward Movement
1959 – 1961, the Three-year Hardship Period
1966 – 1976, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

The Korean War (the Movement of Resisting US aggression and Aiding Korea) is a long story, I will not go into it here as I will write separately another day. In my humble opinion, from 1957 to 1976, political movements were the priority of Chairman Mao, and he did not particularly care whether the people had enough to eat. Chairman Mao won the political power battle so thoroughly that when he was alive no one dared to say no to him. But people’s lives were badly affected.
　

Above image: grain coupons

There has been no official account of how many people starved to death during the Three-year Hardship Period of 1959 to 1961. Folk opinion is divided into two groups, one group says that thirty million people died of starvation, and the other group says that at most six million people died. Even if it's only six million, those who were directly responsible for this national tragedy should be held accountable, right? It was a tragedy beyond comparison in this human world. Whole families in many villages starved to death. Barks were eaten up, and finally people ate people. Please search for the keyword "Xinyang incident". Wang Renzhong, the then second secretary of the Central and Southern Bureau, once said: "I went to Guangshan (a county in Xinyang area, Henan province) and I saw collapsed houses and utterly destitute homes. Everyone was wearing mourning garments, and every family was crying. It was indeed like that, it was not some right-leaning opportunist attack on us. It is true."

Why did so many people die of starvation? I basically agree with Liu Shaoqi, the then President of the State and vice Chairman of the CCP Central Committee, that the disaster was 30% natural and 70% man-made. The climate in the three years from 1959 to 1961 was basically normal, and the direct cause of the numerous deaths was the Great Leap Forward movement launched by Chairman Mao in 1958, which forced peasants to hand over their arable land in exchang for eating free at the communal canteens. This practice was called "fast running into communism" in the Great Leap Forward movement.

It appeared great that canteens were free of charge and one hectare of land could produce several hundred tons of grain. Then everyone ran in, and within a year it turned out to be a scam. However, instead of being held accountable, Chairman Mao retaliated against those who pointed out his mistakes. Liu Shaoqi, who pointed out the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward at the Seven Thousand People's Congress, and Comrade Peng Dehuai, the then Minister for Defence, who wrote the "Ten Thousand Words Letter" to Chairman Mao, both died so miserably that there was no one to collect their bodies. Is it logical to say that Chairman Mao was a respectable leader?

Even the President of the State and the Founding Marshal died so tragically, what would happen if any ordinary citizen dared to criticize Chairman Mao himself or his ideological ideas? Please search for the keywords of "Starfire", "Yu Luoke", "Zhang Zhixin", "Lin Zhao", "Wang Shenqiu", "Zhong Haiyuan", and "Li Jiulian", and check for yourself what it means by "death without a whole body". This was what Chairman Mao did to political dissidents.

Above image, Down with traitor, fink and thief LiuShaoqi, a scene of mass meeting in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The banner slogan in the photo reads: Support the Party Central Committee to expel Liu Shaoqi from the Party forever

Let me talk briefly about Li Jiulian. Compared to Zhang Zhixin and others, she is less famous. When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, Li Jiulian was a student at Ganzhou No. 3 Middle School. In June-July 1967, a large-scale mass armed fighting took place in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, resulting in 168 deaths. Li Jiulian was jared when collecting the dead bodies, and began to question the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (by writing a diary).

For example, in February 1969, Li Jiu-lian wrote in her diary on page 42: "Cadres are sent to labor, so much blood and tears during this period! Young students are sent to the countryside, and there is so much misery and despair!" (This refers to the Go to the Mountains and Countryside movement launched by Chairman Mao in 1968, during which up to 20 millions high school students, the so-called Educated Urban Youth, were forced to leave cities and farm in the remote countryside for as long as 10 years, mostly without pay.)

(Please be aware that some of the following text may be offensive)

On May 1, 1969, Li Jiulian was arrested for "counter-revolutionary crimes" after being denounced by her army man boyfriend Zeng Zhaoyin. She was publicly shot on December 14, 1977. Li Jiulian's jaw and tongue were pierced and sewed together with sharp skewers to prevent her from shouting slogans in the firing squad execution. After which her body was dumped into the wilderness, and was then raped, and her breasts were cut off by vicious men.

It is difficult to tell the exact number of people who died unnaturally in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Let me give two examples: the "Dao County Incident" in Hunan province and the "Armed Mass Fighting" in Guangxi province. In Dao County, from August 13 to October 17, 1967, the armed departments and militias of all levels (from villages, communes to county) killed 4,193 people and forced 326 people to commit suicide, among them the oldest being 78 years old and the youngest 10 days old. Even babies were not spared, and dozens of families were exterminated (families of bad elements and the Black Five families). The methods of killing include shooting, beating, rope strangling, submersion, burning, burying alive, and so on.

In 1981, Comrade Hu Yaobang, the then General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee, gave instructions on dealing with the lingering issues in Dao County: "During July, August, and September 1967, such incidents occurred in many provinces across the country. This was caused by Kang Sheng and Xie Fuzhi. It's been 13 years now, don't talk too much about this kind of thing, just let it go after it's done, let it subside slowly."

(note: Kang Sheng, 1898-1975, former Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Committee, expelled from the Party after his death. Xie Fuzhi, 1909-1972, former Minister for Public Security, Vice Premier of the State Council, expelled from the Party after his death)

The destroyed Nanning city department store during armed mass fighting in 1968. The slogan on the upper right of the photo reads: Long Live Chairman Mao!

(Note: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (hereinafter referred to as the Cultural Revolution) was a political movement launched by Chairman Mao in 1966. It lasted for ten years and did not end until Mao died in 1976. The main purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to mobilize the masses to rebel and overthrow the so-called representatives of the bourgeoisie in the Party. In fact, anyone who ever felt dissatisfied with Mao himself was defeated during the Cultural Revolution, and many of them died unjustly.

1966 was the first stage of the Cultural Revolution. Chairman Mao ordered all schools across the country to suspend classes for the revolution, and mobilized middle school students and college students to form Red Guards. Teachers in many schools were beaten to death by the Red Guards. Beginning in 1967, Chairman Mao called on workers and urban residents to rebel, and the administrative organs of the Party and government basically shut down. Armed conflicts and battles between different factions ensued, and the country fell into a state of anarchy that lasted until the end of 1969.)

In 1968, in response to Chairman Mao's call, two mass organizations, or rebel factions, were established in Guangxi Autonomous Region in southwest of China, one was the "Proletarian Revolutionary Joint Headquarters", referred to as "JHQ", and the other was "April 22 Revolutionary Action Headquarters" , referred to as "422".

From July to August 1968, a fierce battle broke out between 422 and JHQ in Nanning city, Guangxi, with both howitzers and rockets used. The People's Liberation Army of the Guangxi Military Region directly participated in the battle, supporting JHQ. According to incomplete statistics, 1,340 people from "422" were killed, 6,445 were captured, more than 2,500 residents were arrested, 33 streets and alleys in the city center were hit by artillery fire, the city was in ruins, 2,820 houses were burned, and more than 50,000 residents were left homeless.

(Please be aware that some of the following text may be offensive)

I would like to add that many captured "422" personnel were beaten to death on the street, and their hearts and livers were gouged out and eaten by JHQ personnel. This was one of the rare occurrences of cannibalism in modern human history.

In early August 1968, facing the encirclement and suppression by the People's Liberation Army and JHQ, 3,000 personnel from "422" (some say 7,000) went to hide in the underground air defence works. On August 8, "JHQ" ordered the reservoir to release water to the Nanning River. Naning city was then flooded. Many "422" personnel had to climb out to surrender, and many were shot on the spot. The rest of the thousands of 422 personnel and their families, who held out in the underground works, were all drowned, and countless bodies floated down the river. Newspapers in Hong Kong exclaimed: "Guangxi armed mass fighting, bodies floating to the sea... The world was shocked.

Song Yongyi, an expert on the Cultural Revolution, once said that the mass killings of the Cultural Revolution were "an organic combination of state apparatus and mob politics". I think this is very true. Nowadays, when people talk about the Cultural Revolution, they always put the blame on other people, and they were fooled by the Gang of Four, Kang Sheng, Lin Biao, Chairman Mao, etc., except that they did not say that they themselves had no brains.

I think everyone is responsible for not standing up to stop the Cultural Revolution. The biggest lesson of the Cultural Revolution is that we must persist in independent thinking, refuse brainwashing, and do not think that the government and leaders are right in everything. Respect for human rights (and life) is a basic principle that must be upheld at all times. It’s a bottom line that must not be crossed. This is the first universal principle.

After killing that many people, until now, I haven't seen any members of the Guangxi "JHQ" come forward to confess their guilt and apologize. The behaviour of the Chinese is far worse than that of the Japanese, not to mention the Germans. The direct commander of the Guangxi massacre was General Wei Guoqing, then general secretary of the CCP in Guangxi Autonomous Region and the first commissar of the Guangxi Military Region, and he was later promoted to director of the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

　

Above image, Guangxi "JHQ" shows evidence of murders committed by "422". The Chinese characters on the upper side of the newspaper reads: Full of evil, heinous…Five memories of the "422" Black Command counter-revolutionary massacre

Some people say that in this kind of armed fighting, neither side was a good bird. For example, the JHQ and the People's Liberation Army killed thousands of people from the "422", but didn't the "422" also kill the people of the JHQ? It is true; generally speaking, it is a crime for any Chinese to shoot at Chinese themselves. But don't forget that both sides in the fighting were under the banner of defending Chairman Mao. Who caused the armed fighting? If the source of this question is traced, it will undoubtedly fall on Chairman Mao himself.

Regarding Chairman Mao's responsibility for the Cultural Revolution, the original text of the 1981 Resolution of the CCP Central Committee on Several Historical Issues Concerning the Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China is as follows: "Comrade Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao) bears the main responsibility for the Cultural Revolution, a serious mistake of overall and long lasting leftism. But Comrade Mao Zedong's mistake was, after all, a mistake made by a great proletarian revolutionary. ”

It’s certainly true that Chairman Mao bears the primary responsibility, but it is hard for me to agree that Chairman Mao just made mistakes. Not to mention the crime of organized homicide and crimes against humanity, to put it mildly, the crime of malfeasance is definitely there. Even if a few people died in a coal mine incident, the relevant personnel would have to be prosecuted for malfeasance. Tens of millions of people died across the country, but it was just a mistake… My eyeballs almost popped out when I saw the 1981 Resolution. It's not a mistake, it's a crime.

Whoever commits a crime must be severely punished according to the law, no matter how much credit he has made in the past. This is a basic principle. But does this principle also apply to supreme leaders, such as Chairman Mao? This answer should be yes. We should learn from Taiwan and from Comrade Chen Shui-bian in prison. (Note: Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was sentenced to 20 years in prison for accepting bribes.)

However, a dead man cannot stand for trial. What happens when a man commits a crime and dies later? Build a big temple in the capital, like the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, and visit it whenever you have nothing to do?

Various extreme acts of the “Four Clean-ups” Movement (1963-1966), the Armed Fighting (1967-1967), the Destruction of the Four Olds (1966-1968), and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) destroyed countless cultural relics, and traditional national culture and etiquette obliterated completely. All Chinese who destroy Chinese culture can be called traitors (to China). The person who led the initiatives, his crime was execrable.

Image above: Peng Dehuai, the Founding Marshal and former Minister for Defence in a Pi Dou session in 1966, with hands tied behind the back by the Red Guards. Pi Dou is a Chinese word widely used at mass meetings during the Cultural Revolution, in which the so called reactionaries were publicly abused and humiliated, some of them were even beaten to death or forced to commit suicide. In this image, there was a big sign hanging on Peng Dehuai’s chest, it reads: Peng Dehuai, Disgraceful Three Anti Elements, meaning elements which are against China Communist Party, socialism and Mao Zedong Thought

Image above: Ding Ling in a Pi Dou session. Her face was smeared with ink, and the big sign on her chest reads: Ding Ling, Big Rightist. Ding Ling, 1904-1886, was a famous writer, and used to be the vice-chairman of the Chinese Writers Association

(Please be aware that some of the following text may be offensive)

During a decade long Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), what saddened me most was the unnatural death of a large number of famous cultural figures, such as French translator Fu Lei (who hanged himself together with his wife); Female pianist Gu Shengying (committed suicide with her whole family after turning on the gas); Yan Fengying, a famous Huangmei Opera actress (died in hospital after taking sleeping pills and her internal organs were later gouged out); Lao She, a prominent writer (committed suicide by throwing himself into a lake); Chu Anping, former editor-in-chief of Guangming Daily (went missing after being humiliated in Pi Dou); Li Cuizhen, director of the piano Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music (committed suicide after turning on the gas)... According to an interview of Tan Shuzhen, the principle of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the Red Guard poured boiling water directly into professors' ears, and thirteen teachers committed suicide at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music alone... The list is simply too long...

Many people say that Chairman Mao had merits in the past and his subsequent mistakes (crimes) should be forgiven. I cannot agree with this view. If one could do whatever he wants just because he had merits in the past, then the world would be in complete chaos. Chairman Mao himself personally approved the shooting of two corrupt officials, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, in the early days of the founding of the country, which means that people who had merits in the past had to be shot as long as they committed crimes. This is a basic principle that even Chairman Mao himself agreed to.

But does this principle also apply to top leaders, such as Chairman Mao himself? Again, we run into this problem. In other words, does it mean that an official will not be held accountable for crimes as long as his rank is high enough? In a society governed by the rule of law, the President will also go to jail for crimes. If the Emperor is above all, then it is hard to say.
　

Image above：In August 1966, Chairman Mao received millions of Red Guards in Tiananmen Square and encouraged them to rebel. Subsequently, a large number of cultural figures were killed and injured by the Red Guards across the country

Of course, Chairman Mao also had credit, the biggest of which was the unification of China, the end of the warlord era, and the establishment of the new China (PRC, the People’s Republic of China). This is certainly true, but within a few years of the establishment of the new China, the people began to suffer. As long as Chairman Mao was not dead, the self-inflicted setbacks would not stop. Do you want such a new China, and such a leader? What was the purpose of establishing a new China? Tens of millions of people died in the three-year civil war, just to build a country of hunger, hatred and mutual Pi Dou?

(Note: The three-year civil war refers to the war fought between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the opposition Communist Party from 1946 to 1949 for control of China. In the end, the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong won and the Republic of China (and KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek was forced to retreat to Taiwan.)

In my humble opinion, had Chiang Kai-shek won the three-year civil war, he would have unified China as well. As for whether the people of Taiwan live in dire straits, you are free to go and see. Of course, commanding the two bombs and one star (atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb and artificial satellite) was indeed the credit of Chairman Mao. We have just criticized Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is simply inhuman, forcing nuclear weapons and artificial satellites despite the people are in hunger. In 1960, Chairman Mao also faced a similar situation. There was a nationwide famine, and countless people died of hunger, but nothing could not stop him from building nuclear weapons.
　

People sing songs in Du Fu River Pavilion. Changsha city, China, 2013. The red banner at the top of the photo reads: Love China, sing red songs, we miss Chairman Mao

I found that among the people commemorating Chairman Mao, the Red Guards of those years accounted for a large proportion. This is one day in 2013, a group of old people sang red songs in memory of Chairman Mao in Du Fu River Pavillion. These old people should be those crazy Worker's Propagandistic Group and Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution (most of them were high school students and college students at the time). In 1966 and 1967, they smashed everything and beat many innocent people to death, as instructed by Chairman Mao, and then were kicked out again (in 1968 Chairman Mao forced them to go to the remote countryside to farm for ten years). The best time of their generation was spent in mud and pigsties. It is unbelievable that they miss Chairman Mao now. Being sold by others and still counting the money for them?

One of the reasons that many elderly people miss Chairman Mao is that there was basically no corruption back then. This is not true. There were many cases of corruption during Chairman Mao's time, and many of them (corruption offenders) were shot. If you consider the hundreds of times inflation over the years, the small corruption cases at that time are also shocking today. Corruption and rape cases during the Cultural Revolution were not uncommon among the educated youths who were sent to the remote countryside and mountains.

In fact, dealing with money and goods is low-level corruption, and the real big corruption is not done this way. When some comrades talk about emperors, they always guess that the royal family must have been using a golden carrying pole. Let's not make such jokes. Kings have long arms. All the lands in the world belong to the King. From this point of view, dictatorship is the greatest corruption. Whether Chairman Mao is a dictator or not, you judge for yourselves.

Of course, it doesn't mean that the emperor didn't use golden carrying poles at all. Take the National Special Supply as an example. Ordinary cadres could get arrested for embezzlement of a few hundreds of thousands Yuan or a few apartment flats. In order to make special porcelain and cigarettes for the supreme leader, the entire factory stopped daily production and the strength of the whole country was mobilized. What does that mean? (In June 2013, several special porcelain bowls for Chairman Mao were auctioned in Hong Kong and fetched a sky-high price of eight million Yuan)

Image above: Oath of eternal allegiance to Chairman Mao. During the Cultural Revolution, The first thing in the morning for everyone, including hospital inpatients, is to swear allegiance in front of a portrait of Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong), holding in hand the Chairman Mao's quotations, commonly known as the "Little Red Book." This practice is also called "Three loyalties and Four infinities". Three Loyalties refers to loyalty to Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong Thought and Mao Zedong's revolutionary line. The Four Infinits refers to infinite love, infinite faith, infinite worship and infinite loyalty to Mao Zedong. The cult of personality towards Mao reached unprecedented heights.

Lastly, a few words about the personal life of the Chairman. Men love young women, there is nothing much to say. Nowadays many people have lovers outside, but they are also very kind to their wives at home. However, it is not often that a man abandons his wife and children altogether when he takes a new lover.

In 1927, when Mao Zedong went to Jinggang mountain to start a rebellious war against the government, Yang Kaihui, Mao's wife, took their son back to her hometown (Bancang town of Changsha city). At that time, He Jian, chairman of the Hunan provincial government of the Republic of China, was quite polite and did not bother Yang Kaihui (she was considered a family member of the rebels at that time).

According to Peng Dehuai's Self-Statement, Mao Zedong ordered Peng Dehuai to attack Changsha city twice. The first time was on July 25, 1930, when the Red Army, which was inferior in both numbers and ammunition, defeated the government troops and occupied the Changsha city for 10 days. On August 23, 1930, the Red Army attacked Changsha for the second time, but the battle was unsuccessful. Hunan Provincial Government Chairman He Jian was furious, and Yang Kaihui was then arrested and killed in October 1930.

Where was Yang Kaihui when Chairman Mao（Mao Zedong）twice ordered Peng Dehuai to attack Changsha? She was still in Bancang, 60 kilometres away from Changsha. This town is on the way Peng Dehuai attacked Changsha. Tens of thousands of the Red Army surrounded Changsha for three full weeks without taking Yang Kaihui away, nor did they send anyone to inform her to leave. To pick up Yang Kaihui, this was something that two or three orderlies could do, but Mao Zedong didn't do it. We all know that 1930 was the time when Mao Zedong and his new lover, He Zizhen, were in passionate love in Jinggang mountain.

This is a personal immature opinion, and brickbat please.

Yang Fei,
30 Aug, 2013, Changsha