Before Mao: The Untold Story of Li Lisan and the Creation of Communist China

by Patrick Lescot

The first biography of Li Lisan, the first head of China's Communist Party, whose fiery independence led to forced exile under Stalin and eventual execution at the hands of Mao. Combining an exceptional love story with a gripping tale of incarceration in Stalin's gulag and later in Mao's concentration camps, Patrick Lescot's Before Mao is a deeply moving, beautifully told saga of Li Lisan, Mao's predecessor at the head of the Communist Party, a key member of the Russian and Chinese revolutions. Told in an engaging, highly dramatic style that reads more like a novel than a standard history, Lescot skilfully unfolds this page–turning biography. Li, who led the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s, was a rare survivor among the Chinese members of the Internationale. Moving from China to France to the Soviet Union and finally back to China, Before Mao is an extraordinary chronicle of the indomitable human spirit 'allowing us to share in some true moments of emotion, where love wins over totalitarianism's destruction of individuality' (Le Monde).

Genres: China, Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Chinese revolution, like many, seems to have generated almost as much tragedy among the victors as among the vanquished. Li Lisan made his name early, organizing miners in Anyuan with such skill that some of them attended his funeral during the Cultural Revolution decades later. He tried to re-organize the party in Shanghai after the massacres of 1927. In 1930, he led the Communist Army--Mao was at that time subordinate to him and at least according to Patrick Lescot helped scuttle Li's plan of attack by failing to implement his part of the strategy. Li's major flaw was failure to sacrifice at the altar of Stalin; in this book, the Russians are villains of the piece, perhaps even more than Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists. In the early going, Stalin's approach to China depended on what he thought he needed for the struggle with Trotsky. He was in the habit of sending inept advisors to China--one of Li's major offenses was to not kowtow to them. And Stalin was the unlikely and inexplicable savior of Chiang when his own generals sequestered him. The thinking was that Chiang was necessary to fight the Japanese. Li was not so lucky, eventually summoned to Moscow and kept there for years. He was rewarded with a return to China and a seat on the Politburo when the Revolution triumphed, but eventually lost it. Aside from his long-standing strategy differences from Mao and Stalin, Li had married a Russian woman, which became an entirely different kind of liability when Khruschev changed everything. The entire family wound up in prison camps; Li died. The flaw in the book is the occasionally breathless prose, and, especially in the early going, trying to hard for immediacy. But one cannot help but have sympathy for a talented and committed man who opposed the Chinese warlords, Chiang, Mao, Stalin and the Japanese only to run afoul of the thugs of the Cultural Revolution, and wonder what is wrong with a society that could not find a place for him.

[DJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing, educational, and heartbreaking. The tale of Li Lisan is a difficult one to do research on and this book delivers in its promise to tell the “untold story of Li Lisan.” We follow him from his modest upbringings to his heroics in the early days of the Chinese Communist Party. His love story with his wife ‘til death, Lisa, and his 15 year survival in the depths of Soviet prison are incredible. Though a sad end to the life of a great, upright man, history will at least remember the great Li Lisan as a good father, husband and loyal communist.

[Joe Tyborowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revelation of the life and influence of Mao...It is a descriptive tale of how Mao molded several generations of China...It is an awakening, on how 60 million people died and many more suffered during the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap foward..etc. It is an amazing depiction of struggle of a group of people,and how resiliently they endured, the whims and torture of Mao and his compatriots. If you are a history or culture buff, it is a must read. The author has done a phenomenal job in allowing us to see how China has metamophed to the society it is today...One of the few books that I have read twice.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This highly enjoyable read tells the fascinating story and life of Li Lisan. It is a biography, but it is not written in typical biography fashion. By following the life of Lisan, an early leader of the Communist Party in China, the author is able to give a history of communism (and its effects) in the 20th century, coverings topics such as the Communist International, the Great Purges, the Great Chinese Famine, and of course, the Cultural Revolution.