Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait

Political Profiles

by Maurice J. Meisner

Revolutionary and ruler, Marxist and nationalist, liberator and despot, Mao Zedong takes a place among the iconic leaders of the twentieth century. In this book, Maurice Meisner offers a balanced portrait of the man who defined modern China. From his role as leader of a communist revolution in a war-torn and largely rural country to the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the relationship between Mao’s ideas and his political action is highly disputed. With unparalleled authority, Meisner shows how Mao’s unique “sinification of Marxism” provides the key to looking at this extraordinary political career. The first part of the book is devoted to Mao’s revolutionary leadership before 1949, in particular the influence of the liberal and anarchist ideas of the May Fourth era, his discovery of Marxism–Leninism and his conviction that peasants held the potential for revolution. In the second part, Meisner analyses Mao’s early successes as a nationalist unifier and modernizer, the failure of his socialism and his eventual transformation into a tyrant.

Genres: China, History, Biography, Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2006

About the author

Maurice Jerome Meisner was an historian of 20th century China and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Reviews

[Connie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maurice Meisner gives us a balanced look at the life of Mao Zedong. He organized the peasant class into revolutionaries, and was a successful military leader. Mao unified China with a strong central government, instituted land reforms, and set China on a path of industrialization. But he later became a tyrant during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution programs in China. This short volume gives a good overview of Mao Zedong's ideology and political career. 3.5 stars.

[Davide · Rating 4 out of 5]

La vita di Mao Zedong, politico, rivoluzionario, ideologo cinese, rappresenta una narrazione simultanea della storia cinese: Mao, figlio di un modesto contadino, è un giovane zelante e studioso che attraversa la tumultuosa fase dell'adolescenza dalla speranza di una unificazione cinese e dalla sua liberazione dal giogo coloniale delle potenze occidentali all'essere egli attore attivo nel processo che porterà alla nascita del Partito Comunista Cinese e alla proclamazione di una Cina finalmente indipendente al termine della Seconda Guerra Mondiale che, per il Celeste Impero, comincia nel '37 con la tremenda invasione giapponese.
Mao studia Marx, Lenin ma anche altri filosofi e scrittori occidentali. Egli è, fra i più famosi marxisti, forse il più singolare: riunisce nel suo pensiero lotta di liberazione nazionale con la volontà sincera di scavalcare Marx e il marxismo, che vede impossibile una rivoluzione socialista in un paese arretrato e non capitalistico com'era la Cina che mai si accingeva a conquistare dopo una guerra civile che lo vedeva nettamente sfavorito sulle forze del Kuomintang. Il "Grande Timoniere" compie l'impossibile: riunisce la Cina come solo il Primo Imperatore, Qin Shi Huang, aveva saputo fare e proclama la Repubblica Popolare, la quale ha - perché tuttora conserva - il compito di sviluppare le forze produttive cinesi e liberare dalla povertà una nazione che, appena 60 anni fa, contava il maggior numero di poveri sulla Terra (oggi la povertà in Cina è "in via d'estinzione", secondo l'ONU). Ciò non è indolore, secondo l'analisi di Meisner: Mao rimane sempre lo studente che aveva sofferto la derisione dei suoi compagni di classe per le sue umili origini, l'adolescente e l'uomo che mai aveva voluto lasciare la Cina per studiare in Francia proprio per il suo desiderio di conoscere a fondo la Cina in cui vive e, fra le contraddizioni del Grande Balzo in Avanti e quelle della Rivoluzione Culturale, Mao cerca sempre di mantenere viva fra i quadri del Partito Comunista Cinese la radicalità del potere comunista, spesso provocando involontariamente - e questa è la principale assoluzione che Meisner fa a Mao - conseguenze economiche e sociali difficili da gestire. La Cina maoista resta però, per lo storico, un esperimento riuscito: in primis per aver liberato il Paese più popoloso al mondo dall'oppressione coloniale; in secundis per aver concretamente migliorato le condizioni di vita di milioni di cinesi, incanalandoli nella tortuosa strada dello Stato socialista.

[Jared Rosamilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and sometimes repetitive biography, but still gives a balanced overview of Mao's life & role within the pre- and post-revolutionary periods, providing a lot of entry points into 20th century Chinese history. Focuses heavily on Mao's departure from "orthodox" Marxism through the voluntarist translation of revolutionary subjectivity to revolutionary consciousness, allowing for the ability to assign a leading role to China's rural peasantry rather than the (then underdeveloped) urban proletariat in the Communist Revolution.

[Taylor Matalon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is apt. Rather than talking about mao’s favorite color or family it’s strictly about his political and philosophical beliefs, complete with influences evolutions. By the end, it gets a bit repetitive, as I imagine many of the chapters can/are meant to be read discretely.

Would prob give a 3.5 cause it’s a bit boring lol. Chapters about the civil war and long march were sick tho

[Jim Rossi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a writer and graduate student in history who is taking my first class on contemporary China. This book is a concise, even-handed, and at times mesmerizing short biography of one of the most important and profoundly contradictory leaders of the 20th century. Peasant, librarian, teacher, Confucian, anarchist, revolutionary, Socialist, Communist, tyrant - Meisner's book is a huge help toward understanding the evolution of modern China.

[Mason Devos · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Intellectual Portrait on Maurice Meisner

Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait (Volume 2 of Polity Political Profiles Series) is a thorough intellectual analysis of the life, rise, and theory of the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. Meisner tells the story of Mao's life, his political progression, and the rise of Maoism. Meisner is like no other author I have read; this Professor of History writes this portrait with many reputable sources, and he has many years of experience in Marxist thought: "Mao was doubly heretical from the viewpoint of orthodox Marxism-Leninism. First, he departed from Marx (as well as Lenin) by identifying the peasantry rather than the proletariat as the main revolutionary class; secondly, he defied Lenin by favoring the spontaneous revolutionary creativity of the masses over the organized revolutionary consciousness of the party” (Meisner 49). Meisner is an author I can trust, with knowledge of Marxist theory from many revolutionaries and the ability to tell stories well; books like this are important, if we forget history, then we are blind, and history will always repeat itself, this is a book that I highly recommend!

[Kushal Karwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant, unbiased - as compared to the contemporary western English media standards - and a thorough account of Mao's 'sinified' Marxism-Leninism. On the flip side, the author is repetitive in bits and pieces and the reading comes across more as a textbookish dialectic by a historian than a free flowing treatise.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt like this really could have been boiled down to about 1/3 of the length. But the author certainly gets his point across about how Mao differs from traditional Leninism/Marxism.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short and very repetitive. How many times can Meisner say Maosim departs from Marxism??

[Gabe Nowlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author tried to say that Mao wasn’t responsible for the 30 million lives that died under his rule so yeah it’s two stars.

[Matteo Baggio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Questa biografia su Mao mi ha convinto solo a metà. Sicuramente scorrevole e ottima per una prima infarinatura sul personaggio, ma non approfondisce in maniera adeguata alcuni aspetti (sopratutto i più contraddittori) di un personaggio dalle mille sfaccettature, forse troppe per essere racchiuse adeguatamente in un libro di questo tipo.