Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.
For a short period in the late sixties the "Little Red
Book" containing the thoughts of Chinese Communist Party Chairman
Mao Zedong (or as his name was spelled in English at the time
"Mao Tse-Tung") was one of the most intensively-studied books in
the world. Assembled by party editors from old speeches and
writings of Mao, it was intended as a guide for those involved in
the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1969. Mao argued that the Chinese
Revolution had become rigid and betrayed its basic principles. To
reinvigorate it, he invited young people to join the Red Guards
and attack "bourgeois" elements in society. Everyone in China was
forced to gather in study groups to spend hours discussing every
line of the Quotations and applying them to their lives. The book
was also studied by Maoists abroad, including in the U.S. The
results were disastrous. Millions died, many others were
imprisoned for "incorrect" thoughts such as liking Western music
or advocating Confucianism, many of China's brightest and most
creative people were forced to abandon their jobs to labour on
collective farms, and a whole generation lost its chance at
education as it charged around the countryside attacking the
previous generation. The translation used here is that issued by
the party itself through Foreign Languages Press in Beijing in
the second edition of 1966.
To Be Attacked by the Enemy Is Not a Bad Thing but a Good Thing,"
(May 26, 1939)
I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a
person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by
the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have
sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by
the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of
demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better
if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and
without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only
drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves
but achieved a great deal in our work.
Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on
Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957)
In our country bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology,
anti-Marxist ideology, will continue to exist for a long time.
Basically, the socialist system has been established in our
country. We have won the basic victory in transforming the
ownership of the means of production, but we have not yet won
complete victory on the political and ideological fronts. In the
ideological field, the question of who will win in the struggle
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie has not been really
settled yet. We still have to wage a protracted struggle against
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology. It is wrong not to
understand this and to give up ideological struggle. All
erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters,
must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be
allowed to spread unchecked. However, the criticism should be
fully reasoned, analytical and convincing, and not rough,
bureaucratic, metaphysical or dogmatic.
On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" (June 30, 1949)
The ultimate goal of Marxists was not unlike that of
anarchists: the complete abolition of state power and the
establishment of direct democracy among the people. However both
Marx and Lenin had argued that a period of transition called
"socialism" was necessary, in which the state would organize the
conditions necessary for its own abolition. But the only
Communist states which abolished themselves, like that of the
Soviet Union, did so in order to transform themselves into
conventional states.
"Don't you want to abolish state power?" Yes, we do, but not
right now; we cannot do it yet. Why? Because imperialism still
exists, because domestic reaction still exists, because classes
still exist in our country. Our present task is to strengthen the
people's state apparatus--mainly the people's army, the people's
police and the people's courts--in order to consolidate national
defence and protect the people's interests.
Problems of War and Strategy" (November 6, 1938)
In its original context this saying meant that the
Communists would never be allowed to come to power in China
without a successful violent revolution. In the context of the
Cultural Revolution it meant that the Chinese People's Army had
to play a leading role in sustaining, purifying, and spreading
Communism. And abroad it was often used to justify revolutionary
terrorism.
Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows
out of the barrel of a gun."
Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties
(November 18, 1957)
Mao was widely ridiculed abroad for stating that the U.S.
and its nuclear arsenal were "paper tigers." Many supposed that
Mao would have willingly plunged the world into a nuclear war out
of sheer ignorance. But it seems more probable that, lacking such
arms himself, he used his most powerful weapon: the bluff. The
bomb was not a very effective tool of diplomacy because the
threat it posed was only as credible as the willingness of any
nation to plunge the world into a holocaust, very probably
destroying itself in the process. Mao had every reason to let the
world think he was not afraid of the bomb no matter what his
private thoughts might have been.
I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are
merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from
the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not
overthrown? I also said that the tsar of Russia, the emperor of
China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. As we know,
they were all overthrown. U.S. imperialism has not yet been
overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be
overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.
Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership" (June 1,
1943)
This is the core of the ideology that made the Cultural
Revolution so appealing to many young idealists; but in the end
learning from the people turned out to mean learning only from
Chairman Mao and his allies.
In all the practical work of our Party, all correct
leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses." This
means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic
ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into
concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and
propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them
as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action,
and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once
again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go the
masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through.
And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the
ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time.
Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.
Introductory note to "Women Have Gone to the Labor Front"
(1955)
Women had been oppressed in China as much as anywhere on
earth, and Mao often spoke of the important role they would play
in building Communism. Many concrete advances were made for
women; however, except for his wife Jian Qing, who was very
influential during the Cultural Revolution, women were generally
relegated to subordinate positions in the party leadership.
In order to build a great socialist society, it is of the
utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in
productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for
equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can
only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation
of society as a whole.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
(February 27, 1957)
Of all the quotations in the "Little Red Book" none is
more inspiring or chilling than this. It comes from a brief
period of reform in the fifties known as the "Hundred Flowers
Campaign" during which Mao encouraged complete freedom of
thought, including criticism of the Party. The result was much
more vigorous debate than Mao had expected and the period ended
with an abrupt crackdown against those who had raised their
voices in opposition. It could stand as a critique of the
failures of the Cultural Revolution itself, which tried to settle
ideological questions by force under the guise of
debate.
Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of
thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the
arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our
land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and
contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art
and science if administrative measures are used to impose one
particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another.
Questions of right and wrong in the arts and sciences should be
settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific
circles and through practical work in these fields. They should
not be settled in summary fashion.
Summing up how the poet Gu Cheng felt about Maoism, he wrote
. . .
Feeling
The sky is grey
The road is grey
The building is grey
The rain is grey
In this dead expanse of grey
Two children walk by
One bright red
One pale green
