Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume V

Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung #5

by Mao Zedong

Mao's Selected Works, Volume V, published in 2021 by Foreign Languages Press (Paris).

Genres: China, History, Politics, Theory

502 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung, and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, statesman and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion, and later led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's KMT in the Chinese Civil War. Mao established political and military control over most of the territory formerly contained within the Chinese Empire and launched a campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries. He sent the Communist People's Liberation Army into Xinjiang and Tibet but was unable to oust the remnants of the Nationalist Party from Taiwan. He enacted sweeping land reform by using violence and terror to overthrow landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes. The Communist Party's final victory came after decades of turmoil in China, which included the Great Depression, a brutal invasion by Japan and a protracted civil war. Mao's Communist Party ultimately achieved a measure of stability in China, though Mao's efforts to close China to trade and market commerce, and eradicate traditional Chinese culture, have been largely rejected by his successors.

Mao styled himself "The Great Helmsman" and supporters continue to contend that he was responsible for some positive changes which came to China during his three decade rule. These included doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. A cult of personality grew up around Mao, and community dissent was not permitted. His Communist Party still rules in mainland China, retains control of media and education there and officially celebrates his legacy. As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many Chinese as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary, and anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.

Reviews

[Ferio]

No he podido tardar menos en devorar este último y aparentemente medio desconocido tomo recopilatorio de la selección de obras del gran líder comunista chino. Tres días me han bastado para rematar, quién sabe si para siempre, sus textos y pensamientos más modernos (en el tiempo), aquellos posteriores a la guerra civil, cuando ya ostentaba el poder en el país y tocaba hacer una breve revolución democrático-burguesa y una posterior más grande, socialista, que en sus propias palabras iba a durar varias decenas de miles de años.

Como siempre, irnos a las fuentes es muy revelador, especialmente en la desmitificación de todo lo demoníaco alrededor de su figura; mientras que sí repite varias veces que no abolirá la pena de muerte para los más problemáticos contrarrevolucionarios (hijo de su tiempo más que de una ideología), no es menos agresivo a la hora de criticar a Stalin y los errores cometidos por la URSS en el desarrollo del Socialismo, y sus máximos empeños son la mejora cultural del país, el establecimiento continuo de diálogo interno y externo y, muy curiosamente, la mejora de la higiene y la erradicación de plagas, que era un problema fundamental que parecía asolar aquel territorio en la época. También menciona el control de natalidad, medida bastante polémica hasta su reciente extinción a pesar de que muchos adalides de la ciencia ficción la hayan defendido como fundamental en las últimas décadas para evitar el exterminio del planeta.

No es que yo me vaya a hacer maoísta a estas alturas de la existencia, que me pilla un poco mayor, pero sí estoy muy contento de haber echado un tiempo leyendo estos cinco tomos para poder echar luz sobre la sombra que la historia oficial, en su empeño en decir que todo lo Rojo es malo, arrojó sobre esta figura histórica que, como todas (y a las pruebas me remito), hizo cosas buenas y cosas malas. Alguna incluso dio frutos.

[Ñukñu]

This will be my final text from Mao that I will be reading for a while. I’ve read the little red book, the first four official volumes, and this volume which was apparently later redacted from publishing. I finished reading this volume a couple of months ago, however college had taken up most of my time so I delayed writing the review until the semester was over. I will focus on the top three articles that I found important and explain briefly why. I’m doing this to be able to write a review and continue on to the next text.

1956 July 14 US Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger
In this article the chairman discusses the fight of the People’s Liberation Army against the Kuomintang and the Americans. He emphasizes the importance of being connected and supported by the masses. He also makes the first mention of the Indigenous people of Abya Yala (the Americas), and what he believes should be our strategy for national liberation; unite with the masses of settlers against the imperialist bourgeoisie. The article is important because it demonstrates to the reader the ability and strategy to defeat a stronger, better equipped, and better financed opponent.

1957 November 18 A Dialectical Approach to Inner-Party Unity
This article is very short and is straight to the point; be kind to your comrades and understand that we all make mistakes. We should unite with those who are not hostile towards us, and help them correct their mistakes. Mao differentiates between comrades and enemies; in that with our comrades we work together to unite, whereas with our enemies we may compromise as a tactic to ultimately overthrow them. The significance of this article is that it’s a scientific approach towards the concept of forgiveness when it is necessary to continue working with someone.

1957 October 13 Have Firm Faith in the Majority of the People
In this article the topic of rectification movements for individuals and organizations is discussed. The stages are described and the fears of disorder and the inability to extricate oneself are addressed. Intellectuals are presented with five questions for their understanding to be considered “red”: What is the proletariat? What is the dictatorship of the proletariat? Why is it that the proletariat alone has great promise while the other classes are all classes in transition? Why must our country take the socialist road and not the capitalist road? Why is the leadership of the Communist Party indispensable? The campaign against the four pests is mentioned as being included in the forty-article Program for Agricultural Development but there is no mention of a famine. Two valuable pieces of information are the five questions for the intellectuals and the omission of the alleged famine that resulted from the extermination of the sparrow in the four pest campaign.

I’m not able to do justice to the book in such a short review. I recommend activists and organizers read the selected works, at least volumes one through four. You will learn the method of Marxist writing and know the perspective shared by one of the most influential revolutionaries of the twentieth-century. This text completes my goal of reading six books by or about Mao. My next goal is to complete three books by Malcolm X.

[Voyager]

The fifth and final (official) volume of the selected works of Mao Tse-Tung contains the works of Mao from the period of China's alleged "socialist revolution" including Mao's attacks on Stalinism. The Chinese experience in "socialist construction" is fully detailed here in its acceptance of the opportunist line of Tito and Khrushchev, which Mao already alluded to in his earlier works, focusing on profiteering and capitalist methods of development while rejecting the Stalinist teachings on socialist construction detailed by Stalin in his work Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., instead arguing that profit should be the regulator of production, the economy should be decentralised, and that Stalin had been responsible for all economic shortcomings in China. Mao continues from here his baseless attacks on Stalin, in symphony with Trotsky, Tito, and Khrushchev, blaming Stalin for alleged "bureaucratism" and trying to oversimplistically sum up Stalin's legacy in mathematical formulas, a favourite method of Maoism to simplify its teachings to make it easier for its petty-bourgeois followers to spread everywhere, with his "70-30" assertion which, in reality, amounts to a 100% attack on Bolshevism. Indeed, the final volume of Mao's selected works from beginning to end demonstrates his persistent anti-Bolshevik, anti-Stalinist line, and confirms his place in the ranks of opportunism side-by-side with Tito and Khrushchev.

[Sinan Öner]

China Communist Party Leader, People's Republics of China Leader, Poet, Historian, Writer Mao Zedong's "Selected Works, Volume 5" is a very good source for understanding the post-revolution international relations of China. In this volume, there are Mao Zedong's writings, speechs and notes about his thoughts, meetings and official replies to the world politics. During the Mao Zedong's rule in China, there were a lot of things in the world relations, the Korean War, then the Vietnam War, the changes in the Soviet Union (the Kruschev's rule), the changes in Europe, in Africa and in Latin America, the developments of India, Pakistan, Indonesia and others. Mao Zedong wrote a lot of pages for the world politics, Mao Zedong's meetings with the different people from all the world were very important for improving Chinese relations, in Mao Zedong's "Selected Works, Volume 5", we can see mostly. Mao Zedong tried to keep peaceful conditions in Asia, and more, in the world, with his works, with his power which was sourced from his mission in the China Communist Party.

[Sinan Öner]

For congratulation the 100. Year of China Communist Party, to read Mao Zedong's -the leader of China Communist Party, the founder leader of the People's Republic of China- books is very good way! Mao Zedong wrote a lot of essays, articles, notes, a lot of books in his life! Mao Zedong's writing is the story of modern China since 1911 Revolution. Mao Zedong's "Selected Works, Vol 5" is the book of his works which were published after the China Revolution - when the China Communist Party was working to structure socialist system in all the Chinese country with the Chinese People who made the revolution. Mao Zedong questions a lot of subjects about the structuring socialism in China - we can compare his questions with Lenin's, then Stalin's questions for the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's works place in the one context of Communist International's politics for the world since 1919 to 1943, Mao Zedong's "Selected Works, Vol 5" is very useful source to understand the post-revolutionary history of China.

[ernst]

Eines der essentiellen Bücher des Marxismus, ein Kernbuch der bereits standfindenden und kommenden Revolutionen.

Konfrontiert mit dem nun eigenen Aufbau des Sozialismus und seinen Problemen sowie mit der Konterrevolution in der UdSSR, die ihre Wurzeln ja bereits in der Stalinzeit (gegen den Willen Lenins und Stalins) haben musste, setzen die Chinesen zum qualitativen Sprung über die Grenzen des Marxismus-Leninismus hinaus an. Dieser Sprung dauert dann noch bis 1976 fort, wird dann durch den erneuten Sieg der Konterrevolution gestoppt. Die Einsichten, die in bis dahin durch die revolutionäre Praxis der Chinesen erarbeitet wurden, müssen in den imperialistischen Ländern nach wie vor noch erkannt und angeeignet werden. Hier jedenfalls ist eines der entscheidenden Bücher, um diese Arbeit in Angriff zu nehmen.