Chairman Mao Talks to the People: Talk and Letters: 1956-1971

by Mao Zedong, Stuart R. Schram

This fascinating collection of Chairman Mao's speeches, writings, and interviews spans the years from the mid-1950s through the Cultural Revolution and the demise of Lin Piao. The texts, superbly translated by John Chinnery and Tieyun, can be appreciated as the expression of Mao Tse-tung's thinking about various economic, political, and philosophical problems; as historical documents contributing to our knowledge of events in China from 1956 to 1971; and as lively and entertaining prose which projects a vivid image of one of the most remarkable personalities of our time. This collection contains speeches never before translated or only available in small sections, including Mao's "Talks at the Chengtu Conference," "Talks on Questions of Philosophy," "Chairman Mao's Talk to Music Workers," and "Talks with Mao Yuan-hsin." It brings together in one some of Mao's most important speeches, including "On the Ten Great Relationships" and "Speech at the Lushan Conference." In addition, many of Mao's most important discussions during the Cultural Revolution and the controversies surrounding Lin Piao's fall are made available.
—from the back cover

Genres: China, Theory, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

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

[Rhi Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mao Unrehearsed is a collection of mostly excerpts from meetings, some speeches, and a few letters, all pulled from Cultural Revolution newspapers. I think this book was marketed as a bit of a hit piece ("ha ha look at this crazy dictator") but the translator/editor handles the material with a lot of respect. Mao comes across as a humble, clever, and learned man doing his best with the information and tools in front of him. His philosophy is extremely simple and rhetorical but that makes it thought provoking and fun to read. Some of it gets a bit boring, it's a lot of names and references to past meetings, but as with his other work it also has some real bangers.

The endnotes are extensive and helpful for knowing who's who. I would love to read a version that has pinyin names because I can never remember the old anglicizations of Chinese historical figures.

Probably not the first Mao you should read but it does the job of adding some depth to the man with some more unusual and off the cuff writings.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You will never be a revolutionary. You care too much about what other people think."---Chairman Mao, speaking to his niece. Mao never cared a monkey's nuts about what other people thought, particularly his fellow Communists. This collection of talks and correspondences was published in England under the titler CHAIRMAN MAO UNREHEARSED. (The best title, CHAIRMAN MAO UNPLUGGED did not occur to anybody.) The important thing to remember is that the documents were gathered and circulated to the faithful during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao did not have to confront what he despairingly called "the officialdom of the Chinese Communist Party" and its formulaic dogma: "Remember Comrade {XXX}? He read so many books he became a rightist." Significantly, what concerns him most is the (mis)education of Chinese youth: "Study history and you'll see it is always the men of little learning who overthrow the men of great learning. Jesus overthrew the Jewish Scribes; Darwin overthrew the biologists of his day." Mao also lets his readers and listeners in on great secrets:"Publicly we pretended to agree with everything Stalin said while privately we went our own way." An added bonus to this splendid collection lies in the fact that the Chairman always had a great sense of humor. You have to love it when, after the Sino-Soviet split he renamed the street where the Soviet embassy lay in Beijing "Revisionism Avenue". Lots of laughter and learning here.

[kereru · Rating 4 out of 5]

try reading this in public with that cover

[Voyager · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were many works which Mao and the CCP did not wish for foreign audiences to read since it could lead to undoing all the work of Mao and his followers of cultivating this image of Mao as a great opponent of revisionism, follower of Stalin, and Marxist theorist. As such, many important works were totally left out of the official five-volume set of the selected works of Mao while many earlier works were heavily revised to hide Mao's own opportunism. As such, many of the important works of Mao which were concealed from foreign audiences were reprinted here by a foreign Sinologist historian in order to make these works widely accessible to foreign audiences.

Of particular importance when discerning Mao's violations of Marxism are his On the Ten Major Relationships (which seems to have had part of its content removed for some reason) and Talks at the Chengtu Conference where Mao outlines his "own" course for China separate from the Soviet Union and people's democracies and admits that his revolution was of the Titoite type and was opposed to the Comintern.

Generally, this is an excellent collection of the more blatantly un-Marxist works of Mao free from the careful revision of the CCP editors which offers the reader an excellent insight into Mao's un-Marxist ideology.