Mao: The Unknown Story

This book is full of the authors' biases against the protagonist and I felt it a chore to continue turning the pages. A major disappointment, considering all the hype. I have switched to reading Mao: A Life by Philip Short. It is a more unbiased account.

Chang, who was born in China in 1952 and left for Britain in 1978, recounted her family's suffering under Mao in her award-winning Wild Swans (1991). With husband-historian Halliday, she has written a shocking, authoritative account of Mao's life. The authors present evidence that refutes almost every aspect of the Chinese Communist Party's account, from the claim that the Party fought the Japanese to Mao's role in the Long March. Having gleaned indicting information from newly available Chinese and Soviet archives, they depict Mao as a bloodthirsty, ruthless egoist who committed crimes against humanity as serious as Hitler's and Stalin's. While critics acknowledged the authors' contemptuous, one-sided depiction of Mao, few faulted it. Some tedious details, vague generalizations, and scarce imperial history and context for Mao's rise frustrated some critics. But the book will destroy Mao's reputation forever.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

This book took ages to read because I left it behind me and lost about a week of reading it.
I have read books about dictators before but this is up there.
Mao Zedong was manipulative, evil, violent and scheming. He used and abused not only his position but people. I don't think that any other dictator made people suffer like he did.
70 million people died because of him, 38 million by starvation. All their grain, rice and other essential foodstuffs were exported while the people either had to manage with small rations or starve.
The later part of the story is how he used the war with Japan to his advantage. He made fellow party members who he knew all his life suffer.
One of the early chapters is called Lukewarm Believer. He certainly didn't preach or practice the rhetoric of Marx and Engels.

Mao

Shocking, traumatizing, depressing, text-bookish but brilliant. This is the sequal to Jung Chang's first international best seller, "Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China".

It was not an easy read and certainly a challenge to empathize with Jung Chang's anger and open contempt for Mao. Her intense personal feelings established this book as a personal journey of discovery which took her ten years of intense research. Although most of the facts can be verified, there are others, supplied by people who wished to remain anonymous, that prevent this book from being regarded as a historical masterpiece. Yet, being known for her honesty and meticulous skills as researcher, there is no doubt in my mind that all her sources are trustworthy and true.

The actual relationship between Stalin and his newly acquired 'hand-horse', Mao, is revealed in this book and how the events in both countries were masterbrained in Moscow. When Mao decides to go on his own and imposes his version of Communism on a country, the Russian counterpart withdrew, due to the excessive violence used in Maoism. The latter's success inspired him to go bigger than China and rule the world with the events very well documented in this book.

It took me several weeks to finish this book. It was so demoralising and shocking on the mind and body that I really had to gather up courage and persistants to finish it. The tone in the book is much different from her first book, which made it more difficult to absorb. The content is amazing though especially since she had access to Russian archives which closed soon after her research was complete. She had, therefor, a rare insight into documents that not many people will ever see in their lives. She also interviewed people close to Mao, a rare opportunity.

The book is described as "An atom bomb of a book" and it truly is.

For people who still believe in the ideal of communism, this book will be a lesson in how it did not work and why. For those who do not know anything about real communism, this book will be equally an eye-opener. After acquiring this knowledge and background it will be very hard for anyone to defend it. Besides, other forms of communism exist, but none of those models have SUCCESSFUL written over it. Reading this book through Jung's eyes, after reading her own personal family history in "Wild Swans", it is difficult to demand objectivity of her in this book. That is my personal opinion.

It is the one -ism in the world which killed more people than all the world wars from the beginning of time combined.

You must have a real interest in world affairs to read this book. This history is violent, shocking, torturing, excruciating, mind blowing. What Mao did to his own people, even his family, defies every single law of freedom and logic, and even drove all three his children eventually insane. The world knew about Hitler, but after "Mao - the Unknown Story" was published, Hitler's life and deeds became Valentine's stories in comparison. After all, Maoism lead to the deaths of 38 million Chinese of famine alone and 70 million people in total until 1967.

4.5 stars ⭐️

This book is fascinating and I’m so glad I read it. The research that went into this is incredible!! However reading felt like a chore at times, hence the minus of half a star. It is written in an interesting and engaging way, but long and detailed. Also, the subject matter is horribly depressing.

The author definitely did not like Mao and could’ve written more neutrally. However, I also can’t understand who in their right mind could be an apologist for him!! He was an evil and pathetic person. He caused more deaths than Hitler and Stalin did combined! Let that sink in. He also caused the largest man made famine in history which led to the the death of an estimated 38 million people! It’s hard to fathom. He truly was a terrible, evil, narcissistic person. It is beyond terrifying and SO SAD that he had absolute control over the Chinese people for so long!

There were MANY new things I learned while reading this book and I doubt most of them will stick with me, because there was too much information for it all to absorb. But a few new things I learned and found fascinating-

One, Stalin was behind much (if not all) of Mao’s success and coming to power. I hadn’t realized Mao and Stalin were so closely aligned.
Two, Mao was not a fan of the peasants and they were not a fan of his.
Three, during the great famine in which 38 million Chinese people died, the Mao regime was actually exporting food out of their country! They were gifting and selling food to other countries, mostly Russia, to increase their importance and significance internationally. While his own people starved to death.
Four, Mao ruled by extreme fear and violence. The more violent the better. He reveled in it. He insisted the Chinese population of all ages watch, and even participate in extremely violent murders and torchures. The details were absolutely horrifying. He would make family members participate in torchuring loved ones. He would humiliate people in front of their entire village. All village members would be forced to attend and watch the murder/punishment. He loved to come up with the most gruesome ways of torchure imaginable.
And last, Mao did not seem to believe in anything, other than how much power he could achieve. He had zero integrity and lied constantly. He had no loyalty to anyone. He left his own wives and children to die and did not care to leave an heir. He was callous and apathetic to the extreme. He did not even believe in his own ideology. He commanded one thing of his people but not of himself. He was a miserable, pathetic, paranoid person, and caused misery all around him, all the way up to his death.

There are so many other things I could add to that list now that I’m recalling what I read. But I will stop there because this review is getting too long. This book is a grind to get through but it’s definitely worth the read!!

If you know nothing about Mao as I did this is a great book. Very informative and accessible. Although i found many instances where sentences were loaded with bias and therefore there was a decreased amount of credibility as a factual document i Still did love this book. That's not to say that the FACTS in the book aren't factual as the sources are backed up its just there are a lot of opinions given which are open to conjecture.
I would recommend the book , a real page Turner for me

I was prepared for some gut-wrenching details, but the sheer amount of horrors and gory details this book contains was a bit too much for me at times.
This book appears rather one-sided, trying really really hard to deconstruct the myth that is Mao, but not leaving a single good hair on him and his companions whatsoever. I can understand that the authors tried to make a point in painting a deep, and admittedly well-researched portrait of Mao as a narcissist and mass-murderer, but it is so negative that one cannot believe this can be all to the life-story of this man.
I think this book might give an interesting perspective to Mao'a biography, but as an intro (like it was for me), it doesn't seem suitable.

"Mao" catalogs an exhausting array of tortures, mutilations, betrayals, adulteries, treasons, murders and other crimes of the Chairman. Authors Chang and Halliday accessed Soviet archives that shed new light on Mao’s rise to - and ruthless exercise of - power. Readers may find this report of staggering cruelty almost impossible to believe, and the authors have a distinct negative bias. Yet, if even a fraction of what is here reported were true, it could all be true.

Take-Aways
* Self-interest, not ideology, was Mao’s motivation for joining the Communist Party.
* Mao was consummately selfish all of his life.
* Mao became the most powerful figure in China, not because of any superior wisdom, but because he was more unscrupulous and ruthless than any of his challengers.
* During his ascent to supreme power, Mao promoted torture, killing, betrayal and China’s subjection to Russian domination.
* Mao established his position by shamelessly toadying to Stalin.
* As China’s ruler, he starved the people to send food to curry favor with other communist leaders.
* Personally, he lived in luxury and indulged his insatiable appetites for food, sex and power.
* Mao betrayed his wives, his colleagues and his people.
* Zhou Enlai was the chairman’s spineless but vicious accomplice in the destruction of China.
* China’s current government sees itself as the heir and protector of Mao’s legacy.

Consistent Themes
The life of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong) plays out certain consistent themes: selfishness, violence and betrayal. He despised the people of China, Chinese traditions and his father, though he loved his mother. As a young student, he wrote, "I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one’s actions has to be benefiting others...there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me." He lived this philosophy consistently, with horrible consequences.

* Selfishness - No evidence exists that Mao ever gave any thought to anything but his own comfort, convenience and ambition. A bright pupil, he was lazy and ran away from school or was expelled for disobedience. He refused to work and insolently told his father that the old man should do more work than he, the younger. He once called his father names in front of guests and ran out of the house. When his father pursued Mao, he threatened to drown himself in a lake, deliberately manipulating the old man’s traditional Chinese attachment to his eldest son. Mao laughingly observed that he had attacked the foe’s weak point, and "won." Throughout his life, Mao would attack the weak points of dedication to morality, respect for human life, patriotism, and devotion to people and causes, considerations to which he was immune. He exposed his troops to forced marches and impossible battles, killing thousands to establish his position. Several times, he plunged the nation into chaos, starvation, economic disaster and violence, just to ensure that his opponents could not gain power.

* Violence - Early on, Mao developed a taste for depraved violence. The account of his rise to power and his reign is a chronicle of torment. Among the cruelties he encouraged were hacking to death, crushing genitals, gouging out eyes, beatings, wrenching off limbs and more. He was utterly indifferent to human life, considering it currency to spend in his pursuit of power. He surrounded himself with sadistic, perverse torturers, who were willing to breed an atmosphere of terror. He avidly viewed photos and films of torture and relished tales of his enemies’ anguish.

* Betrayal - A very adept student of traditional Chinese culture, he systematically and deliberately betrayed that legacy. Defense minister Marshall Peng Dehuai cited an old Chinese aphorism, "Do not do to others what you don’t want done to yourself." Mao said, "My ’principle’ is exactly the opposite: Do to others precisely what I don’t want done to myself." He betrayed each of his wives by adultery. Even worse, he allowed some of them to die when he easily could have assisted them. Sexual indulgence was one of his most characteristic and consistent practices. Although his policies separated other men and their wives for most of their lives, he assembled a harem of song-and-dance girls and mistresses to cater to his whims. While his policies sank China into abysmal poverty and ignorance, he dined lavishly, built a network of palaces and read books looted from private homes. Mao betrayed China by sending its food as gifts to purchase the goodwill of the Russians and other Communist leaders, or to buy military technology. The East Germans ended rationing with food from China, where Mao starved scores of millions of people, leading to the extreme of cannibalism in some districts. The only explanation for such betrayal was Mao’s megalomania, his desire to supplant Stalin as the leader of the Communist world.

Lukewarm Communist
Mao became the supreme leader of China’s Communist Party, but he did not really believe in Communism. He never really understoodMarxist-Leninist ideology. At every step, Communism was a path to personal advancement. He became a Communist because it gave him a job and Russian money. In the 1920s, Stalin’s Comintern began to establish a serious presence in China. Though Mao was not a founding member, the Communist Party gave him a job running a bookshop selling Communist publications in Changsha. Some Chinese communists disliked depending on Russia for funding, but not Mao. His willingness to toady to Moscow smoothed his ascent in the party. His reaction when the Russians made Chinese communists join the Nationalist party was pivotal in his ascent. Ideologically committed Chinese communists strenuously objected to joining their enemies. But, Mao, who spotted an opening for his ambitions, warmly endorsed the Russian plan.

Long March
When Chiang Kai-shek discovered the depth of Russian attempts to infiltrate and subvert China, he launched an attack on the communists in Shanghai. Mao attempted to manipulate his way into control of more troops. He fled to the so-called bandit country in the mountains, and ordered his troops to join him. He protected himself while troops ostensibly under his control engaged in hopeless battles. The famous "Autumn Harvest Uprising" has entered Chinese Communist mythology as a Mao-led peasant movement. In truth, it was not a peasant movement, and Mao did his best to make it fail. His real aim seems to have been to establish himself as a military power with his own army. He had no particular loyalty or concern for his troops. Many were killed in pointless battles or died from preventable diseases brought on by his erratic, self-interested campaigns. Genuine military men, such as Zhu De, recognized Mao’s ineptitude and self-centeredness. But Mao was a cunning manipulator. His extreme amorality left more scrupulous comrades in the dust. Moreover, his apparently absolute devotion to Stalin made him a valuable prop.

“Mao saw and heard much about brutality, and he liked it.”

The Chinese Communist Party’s mythology about the Long March is a fabric of lies. Jiang Jieshi, not the communists, seriously fought the Japanese. Far from the legendary heroic retreat and regrouping under hostile Nationalist pursuit, the Long March was a matter of Mao finally doing exactly what Jiang wanted. Jiang wanted the Communists to retreat to the northwest, where they would be less of a threat and an impediment to the war against Japan. Despite legend, the heroic crossing of the Dadu River bridge was neither heroic nor impeded by the Nationalists. Mao, who always saw himself as a privileged character, spent most of the "Long March" riding in a litter that his men carried. Young idealists who joined Mao seeking egalitarian socialism found, instead, a strictly hierarchical society, where the higher-ups had plenty and the lower ranks starved. Mao’s regime left the peasantry in much worse shape. Once, Mao proposed a partition of China comparable to the partition of Poland, with half of the country under Stalin’s control. He led his soldiers into death traps. He made arrangements with doctors to poison a charismatic, intelligent rival, who posed a serious threat within the party. Mao was deeply involved in the drug trade - indeed, opium sales became a major source of revenue for the Communists.

In Power
The 1949 Communist victory in China was not the result of mass popular support, but rather of foreign protectionism. At a critical moment in 1946, America intervened to prevent Jiang from chasing and destroying the Communists in Manchuria. During that cease-fire, the Communists established a base near Soviet territory, brought in artillery and consolidated their position. Russian-trained secret agents infiltrated Jiang’s army, betrayed him and, in effect, turned China over to Stalin, in the form of Mao, his local satrap. Mao curried Stalin’s favor by provoking unnecessary confrontations with the U.S. and Britain. Mao did not want the West to recognize China since that would boost Western influence in the country.

“Mao’s machinations had reduced the ranks under him by tens of thousands, to around 10,000 hungry and exhausted men in rags. But no matter to him. The army could be rebuilt.”

Westerners launched or influenced all of China’s modern schools. Mao had been educated in a Western school. His people recognized the superiority of Western military technology. Yet Mao’s continuing eminence depended on Stalin’s patronage, so Mao kept Stalin happy. Indeed, the Korean War was largely Mao’s idea. His willingness to commit thousands of Chinese troops (basically sending them to their deaths) persuaded Stalin to approve Kim Il Song’s invasion of the south. Tying America down on the Korean peninsula opened opportunities for Stalin elsewhere. Mao had a thinly concealed agenda: He wanted Russia to help build China’s arms industry, and to give him atomic weapons and the technology to make them. He thought he could get this concession from Russia by goading the U.S. into threatening to use atomic weapons on China. He was very explicit that China could be Russia’s buffer zone, absorbing the brunt of an attack. Stalin’s death and Russia’s sudden de-Stalinization only temporarily frustrated Mao’s plans.

Great Leap, Great Famine
During the 1950s, Mao demanded impossible increases in the peasantry’s grain production and confiscated enough grain to plunge the country into widespread starvation. During his so-called Great Leap, Mao was well aware of the disastrous consequences of famine, but his political objectives took precedence.

“The current Communist regime declares itself to be Mao’s heir and fiercely perpetuates the myth of Mao.”

To make the peasants easier to control, Mao imposed collectivization. When peasants grumbled, the regime responded with dreadful purges. Mao set arbitrary targets for the arrests of so-called "counterrevolutionaries" and local bureaucrats did their best to round up people to fill the quota. Mao’s goal was to squeeze every resource from the peasantry in order to fund an industrial base, and build his own bomb. The Chinese people paid dearly for Mao’s obsession with atomic weapons. When the price got too steep, even hardened communists, such as Chou En-lai (Zhou Enlai) and Liu Shao-ch’i (Liu Shaoqi), demanded some relaxation of the program’s goals. Mao was extremely reluctant to lessen his demands, and when his allies protested, he purged and replaced them with cronies who were more reliably ruthless. He knew about widespread starvation in the countryside, but was clearly indifferent. He was willing to see half of China’s population die to realize his ambitions and, indeed, millions died.

Self-Aggrandizement
Nikita Khrushchev’s program of liberalization and de-Stalinization deeply upset Mao, but he saw it as an opportunity to present himself as the leader of the Communist world. In 1957, a Stalinist coup attempt in the Soviet Union showed Khrushchev his need for support from foreign Communist parties. Mao demanded a steep price for his support: atomic weapons and missiles. Khrushchev paid, and Mao demanded more: He wanted the best satellite capacity. He wanted control of the world Communist movement. At the November 7, 1957, summit celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Mao ostentatiously emphasized his equality with Khrushchev as a Communist leader. He talked down to Khrushchev, who tolerated Mao’s "megalomania" to preserve Communist unity. When Mao demanded additional military technology, especially submarines, and offered China as the battleground for a nuclear war with the U.S., Khrushchev seems to have accepted the offer. This is, in part, why Mao fomented a crisis over Taiwan by firing on the island of Quemoy.

Cultural Revolution
Mao’s unparalleled ruthlessness and his willingness to sacrifice Chinese lives seems at some point to have horrified even the most ideologically committed of his fellow veteran communists. By the end of the 1950s, people such as Marshall Peng Dehuai had begun to criticize Mao more or less openly. Mao relied on purges to secure his position, yet it grew increasingly insecure. By 1966, he had to reach out to a population that firmly believed in his myth to declare an effective war on the party’s responsible, patriotic figures. His allies in launching the Cultural Revolution - in essence, a revolution to destroy Chinese culture - were his sadistic ally Lin Biao and Lin’s perverted wife; Mao’s own cruel, apparently demented spouse, Mme. Mao; and the ever-compliant Zhou Enlai. The Red Guards - not a formal army, but gangs of young people - terrorized and scourged every corner of China, encouraged to vent their most violent impulses on alleged counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries. Elite squads, called Rebels, attacked established Party cadres. Mao ultimately purged Liu Shaoqi, his most serious political threat. Some reformers, such as Deng Xiaoping, eventually attempted to undo much of Mao’s harm, but with mixed success.

Mao never became the Communist world’s leader. He left China a disastrous legacy: a generation lost, a society scarred by violence, a Party with no legitimate moral claim to govern. Its claim to the mantle of Mao only emphasizes its illegitimacy. Mao was a traitor, a torturer and one of history’s most monstrous tyrants.