Mao: The Real Story
Language: English
Pages: 784
ISBN: 1451654472
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This major new biography of Mao uses extensive Russian documents previously unavailable to biographers to reveal surprising details about Mao’s rise to power and leadership in China.
This major new biography of Mao uses extensive Russian documents previously unavailable to biographers to reveal surprising details about Mao’s rise to power and his leadership in China.
Mao Zedong was one of the most important figures of the twentieth century, the most important in the history of modern China. A complex figure, he was champion of the poor and brutal tyrant, poet and despot.
Pantsov and Levine show Mao’s relentless drive to succeed, vividly describing his growing role in the nascent Communist Party of China. They disclose startling facts about his personal life, particularly regarding his health and his lifelong serial affairs with young women. They portray him as the loyal Stalinist that he was, who never broke with the Soviet Union until after Stalin’s death.
Mao brought his country from poverty and economic backwardness into the modern age and onto the world stage. But he was also responsible for an unprecedented loss of life. The disastrous Great Leap Forward with its accompanying famine and the bloody Cultural Revolution were Mao’s creations. Internationally Mao began to distance China from the USSR under Khrushchev and shrewdly renewed relations with the U.S. as a counter to the Soviets. He lived and behaved as China’s last emperor.
sud’bakh Kitaia (The USSR and Stalin in China’s Fate), 78. 6. See Zhang, Sino-Soviet Economic Cooperation, 197. 7. In this connection, the assertion by the Russian historian B. T. Kulik that Stalin supposedly agreed to fulfill all of Zhou Enlai’s requests, including a request to plan for and build 151 (?) industrial enterprises in China, does not correspond to the historical facts. See Kulik, Sovetsko-kitaiskii raskol (The Soviet-Chinese Split), 95. 8. See “Zapis’ besedy tovarishcha Stalina I.
Changchun Railroad.” 57 At this time the Security Council consisted of eleven members, including the five permanent members possessing the right of the veto. These five were the United States, the USSR, Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China, Great Britain, and France. 58 According to the majority of Western specialists, during the First Five-Year Plan, Soviet industry grew by an annual rate of 12 percent. It is doubtful, however, that Stalin trusted Western statistics. 59 Li Lisan was elected a
edited canonical text. A translation of the first appeared in the West and in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The official document was published in the PRC in 1976. The formula “build socialism more, faster, better, and more economically” is only in the stenographic account. In a note, however, the editors of the fifth volume of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong confirm that in his speech Mao did indeed propose this idea as the general line for socialist construction. 67 Zhou Enlai was the first
Great Leap Forward, 478, 479, 482–84, 485 as moderate, 396–97, 430, 434, 438 Chen Zaidao, x, 528–29 Chen Zuoxin, 33–34 Chenbao (Morning news), 134 Cheng Qian, 176–77 Chengdu, 54, 337, 522 Guomindang government in, 352 Chervonenko, Stepan, 540 Chiang Ching-kuo (Nikolai Vladimirovich Elizarov), 181, 312 Chiang Kai-shek, x, 151, 163, 176, 183, 312, 332, 337, 343, 375n, 388, 462, 479, 498, 559, 565, 571, 583, 585 arrest of, 298–304, 528 assassination attempt against, 247 attack on
Great Leap Forward, 478, 479, 482–84, 485 as moderate, 396–97, 430, 434, 438 Chen Zaidao, x, 528–29 Chen Zuoxin, 33–34 Chenbao (Morning news), 134 Cheng Qian, 176–77 Chengdu, 54, 337, 522 Guomindang government in, 352 Chervonenko, Stepan, 540 Chiang Ching-kuo (Nikolai Vladimirovich Elizarov), 181, 312 Chiang Kai-shek, x, 151, 163, 176, 183, 312, 332, 337, 343, 375n, 388, 462, 479, 498, 559, 565, 571, 583, 585 arrest of, 298–304, 528 assassination attempt against, 247 attack on