2-A leader’ incapable of making mistakes”

NE of the most perceptive
foreign correspondents to
visit Yenan in the 1936-37

period was Agnes Smedley. In
her book, Battle Hymn of China,

she gives a vivid description of.

her first meeting with Mao Tse-
tung:

“On the same memorable
night that I arrived in Yenan
and met General Chu Teh, I was
able to call on Mao Tse-tung,
because he worked at night and
slept by day. Calling on him at
midnight, I pushed back a pad-
ded cotton drape across a door
in a mountain cave, and stepped
into a dark cavern. Directly in
the centre of this darkness stood
a tall-candle on a rough-hewn
table. Its glow fell on piles of
books and papers and touched
the low earthern ceiling above.
A man’s figure was standing
with one hand on the table; his
face, turned toward the door,
was in shadow. I saw a mass of
dark clothing covered by a loose
padded greatcoat. “The section
of earthen floor on which he
stood was raised, accentuating
his height, and the gloom of the
cave, broken only by the soli-
tary candle, lent a sinister beau-
ty to the scene. It was like some
ancient painting almost obliter-
ated by time.

“The tall, forbidding figure
lumbered towards us and a high-
pitched voice greeted us. Then
two hands grasped mine; they
were as long and sensitive as a
woman’s. Without speaking we
stared at each other. His dark,
inscrutable face was long, the
forehead broad and high, the
mouth feminine. Whatever else
he might be, he was an aesthete.
I was in fact repelled by the
feminine in him and by the
gloom of the setting. An in-
stinctive hostility sprang up in-
side me, and I became so occu-
pied with trying to master it that
I hardly heard a word of what
followed.

“What I now remember of
Mao Tse-tung was the following
months of precious friendship;
they both confirmed and con-
tradicted his inscrutability. The
sinister quality I had at first felt
so strongly in him proved to be
a spiritual isolation. As Chu Teh
was loved, Mao Tse-tung was
respected. The few who came to

Mao Tse-tung at the time of the liberation of Peking

know him best had affection for
him, but his spirit dwelt within
itself, isolating him. . . In him
was none of the humility of Chu.
Despite that feminine quality in
him, he was as stubborn as a
mule, and a steel rod of pride
and determination ran through
his nature. I had the impres-
sion that he would wait and
watch for.years but eventually
have his way.

“Every other Communist
leader might be compared with
someone of another nationality
or time, but not Mao Tse-tung.
People said this was because he
was purely Chinese and had
never travelled or studied
abroad. Neither had Peng Teh-
hwei, Ho Lung, Lin Piao, nor
other Red Army men, yet they
all had their counterparts in
other lands. Mao was known as
the theoretician. But his theo-
ries were rooted in Chinese
history and in experience on
the battlefield...

“His humor was often sar-
donic and grim, as if it sprang
from deep caverns of spiritual

but also reactionary . .

A 180-degree turn

“The Soviet Union has entered an important historical
period—that of the all-round building of communist society
— and is announcing to mankind that communist society

_ with its infinite spendor is not far off. The other socialist
countries are also rapidly developing their own national eco-
nomic construction. It is quite certain that within a not very
long historical period the Soviet Union will outstrip the
United States in the level of per capita output. China will
also become a great and advanced industrial power, and the
entire socialist camp will markedly surpass the imperialist
camp in material production, thus ensuring world peace.”

—Premier Chou En-lai, April 18, 1959, in a report
to the Second National People’s Congress.

“Khrushchov’s slogan of basically ‘building a communist
society within 20 years’ in the Soviet Union is not only false
. the issue confronting the Soviet
people is not how to build communism but rather how to
resist and oppose Khrushchov’s effort to restore capitalism.”

—Ninth comment on CPSU open letter by People’s
\ Daily and Red Flag, July +3, 1964.

seclusion. ( had the impression
that there was a door of his
being that had never been open-
ed to anyone.

“As a linguist he was as bad
as myself. To supplement his
Hunan dialect, he tried to learn
Mandarin from my _ secretary
and English from me. His ef-
forts to learn English songs were
a dismal failure, for his voice
was a monotone. Pride prevent-
ed him from trying to dance.
He had no rhythm in his being.”

It is- an interesting sidelight
on Mao’s personality that he
never did learn to speak the
major dialect of the Hans—that
is, Mandarin (or Peking dialect,
as it is now called).

In November 1962, while
visiting Changsha, my hosts
drove me to the nearby village
in Hsiangtan district, Hunan
province, where Mao was born.
His family owned 20 mu of land
and were rich peasants. Over
the big four-poster bed in which
Mao was born hung a portrait
of his parents (they died in
1919). Two little cases contain-
ed gods taking care of the
family — one was the God of
Wealth. Mao’s father, a man
with long drooping moustaches,
had also set up ancestral tablets
of his father and grandfather —
the latter the man who had
founded the family fortune and
bought the farm.

It was obvious that Mao en-
joyed a sheltered and comfor-
table childhood, well cared for
by family and servants. Like
many young Chinese intellect-
uals, however, he was dissatis-
fied with the social system exist-
ing in China and became a
Marxist. while still a student.
Still, his future was unclear; at
one time he decided to become
a policeman, went so far as to
fill out application papers, then
withdrew them. On another oc-
casion he went tramping around
the country with a friend, Siao-
yu (the story is told in the lat-
ter’s book, ‘Mao Tse-tung and I
were Beggars’, published by

Hutchinson and Co. London,
1961).

Mao studied’at Changsha First
Normal School, and later at
Peking University. In 1920,
about 2,000 Chinese student-
workers went to France to learn
something of the outside world.
Among them were many of the
present-day CPC leaders—Chou
En-lai, Chen Yi, Li Li-san, Li Fu-
chun, to name only a few. Chu
Teh also went to France and
Germany to study. But Mao Tse-
tung showed no interest in
going abroad — to him, as to
the ancient emperors, China was
always “the Middle Kingdom.”

Mao was one of the founders
of the Communist Party of China
in 1921. He became a member
of the central committee in
1923; the following year he at-
tended the first Kuomintang Na-
tional Congress and was elected
an alternate member of ‘the
Kuomintang central committee
(at this period the Communists
and KMT were working to-
gether). As early as 1925 Mao
was stressing his line that the
peasantry formed the base for
revolution (in contrast to the
“attack the cities’ line of the
majority in the leadership).
When the Nanchang uprising
failed in 1927 Mao was dismiss-
ed from the CPC central com-
mittee for failing to obey orders
to continue attacking the city
(although history vindicates his
decision to withdraw his troops
from the useless slaughter).

Mao joined forces with Chu
Teh, established a base on the
Hunan-Kiangsi border in 1928,
and the same year was reinstat-
ed as a member of the central
committee. In 1934 he was again
in trouble with the party lead-
ers, and was criticized for ‘‘ban-
ditry doctrine” and reduced in
rank.

Mao assumed command of the
Long March; when the columns
reached Tsunyi an emergency
conference was held, Mao’s line
of peasant-based revolution
was adopted, and he became
head of the Communist Party
and led a column to Yenan,
which was for many years the
party’s revolutionary base.

Mao led the resistance move-

: : : En-loh fen?
This photo shows CPC leaders Liu Shao-chi, Chou 1953" it Pe
Hsiao-ping and Peng Chen at the Peking airport in July ys" |
and Peng were on their way to Moscow to take part 19
the CPSU. The talks were broken off by the Chinese.

_ pag?
August 14, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE ’

ment to Japanese aggressiom and
Jater the liberation forces in the”
civil war against Chiang Kal
shek. His correct policy and
prilliant leadership in this MS
toric period earned him an un
questioned place in history: oe
proclaimed the People’s Repu §
lic of China in Peking in S&2as
tember, 1949.

In recent years Mao we
largely responsible for the
100 Flowers Bloom and Let ©]
Schools of Thought Contemi®
policy of 1957—which unleasy =
ed a flood of criticism Mi
was abruptly shut off an i
sulted in hundreds of intelle®
tuals being ‘‘capped’” as Be
ists and sent to the countrys!”
for “re-education.”

In 1958 Mao went overboute
on another pet project — i id
setting up of People’s con
munes. This attempt to bypass |
necessary stage of agricult NE
development and jump ahea #, i
other socialist countries ov

5 just F
night” failed miserably — He ;
as the Great Leap on the I? py fines
trial front ended in disastel ‘Fela,

December 1960 the CPC cen ‘0
committee took drastic ster 44
appease the angry peasants ng Fe
rectify major errors by cha
ing the size and method of oP :
ration of the communes. ert

t

As Mao grows older, not ont ie
does-he fail to criticize his ni lie
mistakes, but no one in rng ni
is allowed to criticize anyt i
that he does or says. T
is assiduouly spread that
man Mao” is incapable of
ing a mistake. __ } Any

. jp

Shortly after I arrived a fe ¢
China in 1960 I was bras wh) Ren
ough to ask a leading ate kis
all Chinese documents 1 Com
to “the leadership of the. ‘08 Ie
munist Party and the th? 00 hit,
of Chairman Mao.” Is not ask
a member of the party? } fro Wee
ed; then, why separate ee 54
the party? The answer | f nat al)
long time in coming, but a Pes
ly came: “Our party has "ade Jy
times made mistakes, com 128
Whyte, but Chairman Ma0 sis jn
never made a mistake
life.”

echail” lick
make Met

oy 7 fy

China has a long histo" et ,
emperors who thought tha 14
too, never made mistakes:

tend