Marching With Mao: A Biographical Journey

by William Lindesay

The "Book of Lists" ranked Chairman Mao as the most hated man in the world in 1980. Sixteen years after his death, China could have buried the memory of the Cultural Revolution by putting Mao six feet under. On the contrary he remains six feet above in a monolithic mausoleum. William Lindesay, whose wife is Chinese, benefits from being both insider and outsider, and has been able to discuss the Long March with its veterans, and provides an interview with the mortician who embalmed Chairman Mao. He travels over a period of a year to Mao's birthplace, to the roots of the CCP and the first base area of the communist guerrillas. The 1993 publication of the book coincides with the centenary of his birth. William Lindesay is the author of "Alone on the Great Wall".

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Englishman William Lindesay studied geography and geology at Liverpool University and in 1987 made what China's official Xinhua News Agency described as "the most successful foreign exploration of the Great Wall" in a 2,470 km solo adventure. Since 1994 he has primarily been engaged in systematic research of the Great Wall in the Beijing region and has organized two major "Great Wall Clean Ups".

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Royce Ratterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work recounts William Lindesay’s personal 'Long March' retracing Mao Zedong's six-thousand-mile (9,600 kilometers) trek from the south to the north of Chine. Filled with background history related to Mao, individuals surrounding this era and beyond, and events throughout China's history. We see Mao's focus on achieving revolutionary change "rested with winning the peasantry's support-" Mao and his Red Army would reach two-hundred million rural folk along the journey. Mao had come from a peasant family and believed that the revolution in China could be won with the help of the peasants, who made up the bulk of the population.

Descriptive language salts the pages lightly throughout this work and the reader will find themselves in the midst of any number of the scenes presented: "Freezing fog dusting the grasses with frost blanketed the dawn grassland... I found a suffocating quilt of dawn mist lying like a bed of wispy-white feathers over the valley road leading north to Tianquan... There was no sun. Low grey clouds hung below a wan sky, unmoving, lifeless, like those on a theatrical stage."

According to the guide of Mao's family home, Miss Cheng Zhenghui, what influenced Mao Zedong: "It was these foreign devils... the Black Bear for Russia, the Lion of Britain, the Cockerel for France and the American eagle. In all, eight imperialist powers infested Chinese territory."

- Excerpts:

"Speaking of the Long March one may ask, 'What is its significance?' We answer that the Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of history, that it is a manifesto, a seeding machine... In the eleven provinces it has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom and bear fruit, and will yield a harvest in the future. In a word, the Long March has ended with victory for us and defeat for the enemy."

"What made Chairman Mao, a seventy-three-year-old, so appealing to the generation young enough to be his grandchildren? The answer to this question is, I believe, the key to understanding the mechanics of the Cultural revolution. It was that he offered them a chance to rebel... In one fell swoop the millennium-old Confucian respect for elders was shattered. Their Little Red Books and armbands were licenses to a rebellion that degenerated into carte blanche for brute violence and disorder... the latent and apparent yobbo nature that Mao masterfully recruited to play out his great experiment - an attempt to brainwash the Chinese people and mold a proletarian clone of obedient workers, peasants and soldiers."

"Historically, the Red Guards were originated by the Qinghua University middle school in Beijing... 'Generally speaking, the worst students made the best (most violent) Red Guards,' said Sister Xiaoping, 'but I loved Chairman Mao dearly. He gave us Red Guards opportunity to taste revolution, although I and the whole country paid for it.'"

- Other works that may be of interest to you:

China's Hundred Weeds: A Study of the Anti–Rightist Campaign in China (1957–58) by Naranarayan Das (1979)

Ph D Thesis: The Anti-Rightist Campaign in China, 1957-58 by Naranarayan Das

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir by Ai Weiwei (November 2021)

Inside Mao's China | Documentary History
YouTube | 52.21 minutes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig7NZ3a...