مائو داستان ناشناخته یک کتاب عظیم تقریبا 1000 صفحه ای در مورد مائو بنیانگذار جمهوری خلق چین و یکی از بزرگترین جنایتکاران قرن بیستم می باشد ، نویسندگان این کتاب هر چه صفت منفی در جهان وجود دارد به مائو نسبت داده اند : از دزدی و راه زنی و تجاوز و زن باره گی و انواع و اقسام دسیسه بازی و جنون و علاقه مفرط به خون ریزی . در حقیقت هیچ صفت مثبتی در مائو از دیدگاه نویسندگان کتاب وجود ندارد ، البته تعداد افرادی که توسط مائو یا به دلیل سیاستهای مائو کشته شده اند به مراتب از قربانیان هیتلر و استالین بیشتر بوده اند و شاید این دلیلی باشد که چنین آدمی صفت مثبتی ندارد .
کتاب با نثری ساده و روان تاریخ طولانی چین را از سال 1920 تا سال 1980 در می نوردد : تاریخی که جا به جای آن رد خون وخونریزی ، فقر و گرسنگی و قحطی به چشم می خورد و این وسط مائو مهمترین فرد این تاریخ خونین است ، کتاب زمان زیادی را به مبارزات مائو پرداخته والبته هر جا هم توانسته او را لجن مال کرده ، در حقیقت نویسندگان کتاب تمام پیروزی های مائو را یا به شانس واقبال و یا به لیاقت و شجاعت افراد زیر دست او نسبت داده اند و کلیه شکست ها را به مائوی نگون بخت !
اما ماجراجویی های مائو شاید با راه پیمایی بزرگ شروع شده باشد ، راه پیمایی که یک سال طول کشید و البته مائو یا بر دوش سربازان بدبخت بود و یا روی تخت روان ! سپس به جنگ های داخلی چین و نزاع و جنگ با حکومت فاسد چیانگ کای شک و سپس جنگ با ژاپن می رسیم .( تلفات جنگ داخلی چین بین 8 تا 10 میلیون نفر بوده و جنگ با ژاپن هم تلفاتی در حدود 22 میلیون داشته است ) . بعد از جنگ دوم هم ملت چین بهره ای از آرامش نداشته ( البته به مانند همه دیکتاتورها جنگ برای مائو یک نعمت است و او در زمان جنگ است که میتواند قدرت خود را تحکیم کند ) و باز بین کمونیست ها و ملی گرایان گرفتار مانده بودند تا بالاخره جنگ داخلی با پیروزی مائو وفرار چیانگ کای شک به تایوان به اتمام می رسد و نوبت به زمامداری و عصر مائو میرسد و این تازه اوله ماجراست :
جایی که هم تاریخ و هم نویسنده بر آن تاکید دارند فجایع بی نظیر در دوران زمامداری مائو است ، اگر کل تلفات جنگ جهانی دوم را 55 میلیون نفر در نظر بگیریم ، تلفات چین در دوران مائو را بین 45 تا 70 میلیون نفر تخمین زده اند . در اولین شاهکار مائو ، جهش به سمت جلو ، 38 میلیون تلفات بر اثر قحطی ، بیماری و کار زیاد روی دست ملت گذاشت . نکته جالب خطرناک بودن مائو حتی برای حیوانات بود ! او موشها ؛ مگسها ، پشه هاو گنجشکان را دشمن خلق معرفی کرده بود و تقریبا نسل گنجشک های بیچاره را در چین برانداخت ( از تلفات موش ها و مگس ها اطلاعی در دست نیست !) . کارهای احمقانه دیگر مائو هم در کتاب بیان شده وهم حرصی که نویسنده از دست مائو خورده به وضوح در بین سطرهای کتاب آشکار است ، تا جایی که به نظر می رسد ممکن است که نویسندگان کتاب از شدت نفرت از مائو ، عقاید شخصی خود را هم در کتاب آورده باشند .
اما صدر مائو چگونه حکومت می کرد ؟
مائو بر خلاف استالین یا سایر دیکتاتورها نیازی به مخفی کردن خشونت خود نداشت ، در زمان مائو اعدام ها و شکنجه های فجیع چینی در جمع انجام میشد و حضور ملت در آن الزامی بود ، روش مائو باز هم مانند دیکتاتورهای مشابه ، ساختن نهاد های مشابه و موازی و دادن قدرت به آنها و خواستن پاسخ از نهادهای رسمی بی قدرت بود . نویسنده کتاب اعتقاد دارد که چوئن لای فرد موجه و معتدل و بزک کننده چهره رژیم مائو بود و این پیام را به غرب می فرستاد که در صورت حمایت نکردن از معتدل ها ، جناح تندرو مائو قدرت را کامل در اختیار خواهد گرفت .
شخصیت دیگری هم که کتاب به او بسیار می پردازد چوئن لای نخست وزیر فرزانه ودانشمند چین هست . چوئن لای در کتاب شخصیت بدون فکر و اندیشه و به ادبیات امروزی ما به سان ماله کش اعظم بوده است . در حقیقت چوئن لای اندیشه های اصلاحگرایانه خود را چنان آهسته و بی سروصدا زیر گوش هیولایی مانند مائو (چوئن لای حتی از درمان سرطان دردناک مثانه خود توسط مائو منع شده بود و مائو اجازه عمل کردن را به ا�� نمی داد ) اجرا کرد که در تاریخ جهان این همه صبر و استقامت بی مانند است . از دید سطحی نویسندگان کتاب چوئن لای هم شریک آدم کشی ها و جنایت های مائو است در حالی که نسل اصلاح طلب بعد از مائو – در راس آن ها تنگ شیائو پنگ که جان صدها میلیون چینی را از قحطی نجات داد - لینک زیر
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

همگی از شاگردان چوئن لای و ادامه دهندگان راه او بوده اند و در پایان صبر و استقامت و رفتار سنجیده چوئن لای بر دیوانه بازی های مائو پیروز شد (به قول چینی ها :به دنبال انتقام گیری از دشمن نباشید. کنار رودخانه بنشینید. آب، جسد او را می آورد)
اما حالا که کتاب 1000 صفحه ای مائو تمام شده ، فکر میکنم که اثر بی هدف و غرضی نخوانده ام و برای فهم تاریخ پررمز و راز چین در قرن بیستم و همین طور درک شخصیت چوئن لای به مطالعه کتاب های دیگری هم نیاز هست .

******
مائو داستان ناشناخته ، کتابی ایست که خانم چانگ به همراه همسر خود آقای جان هالیدی در مورد زندگی مائو نوشته ، پس از خواندن قوهای وحشی که خانم چانگ شناخت و ذوب تدریجی توده های مردم و کیش شخصیت عظیم مائو را با مهارت نشان داده ، کتاب مائو داستان ناشناخته را تنها می توان فاجعه دانست .
نگاه یک طرفه به همراه قضاوت بی رحمانه نویسندگان ، کتاب را فاقد هرگونه ارزش کرده است .

Jung Chang and her husband are both respected university professors who attempt to present a biography over 20 years in the making. Every comment in their book is also extensively sourced with a bibliography at the end that illuminates they extensive span of their work. The problem is readership be it by academics or otherwise fails to differentiate that the book is not her opinion but rather a collection of other authors facts, many of them from unclassified documents in Russian KGB archives. Unfortunately, it will be maybe another 50-100 years before modern history teachers will have a curriculum that matches the sources she documents. This added with the fact that the current government of China [the PRC] is founded on the 'cult of mao' ideology presents challenges to the progress of work as comprehensive as this one. This book is not for the light of heart, and is not an easy read. I would describe it as literally like reading a history text where each chapter depicts a more gruesome side of human nature after another, and the absolute worst case scenario when good people fail to act.

I am giving this book four stars for two reasons. The first is that the research effort by Ms. Chang was extraordinary. The second is that her husband conducted exhaustive research in the Russian archives something that I suspect no other Western academic following China would have been able to do. The result is a book which is rich in detail on Mao and which presents the best description of Mao's relations with the Russians thus providing the best explanation of how the communists were able to seize power in China.

Ms. Chang talked to great many sources which is commendable. However, she appears to have taken all stories at face value. Thus along with the credible material, the reader is bombarded with a great deal of highly improbable stories. Ms. Chang is right to have a personal dislike of Mao. Most sources estimate that his disastrous agricultural policies, work camps and cultural revolution were responsible for roughly 30 million deaths. However, evil the man may have been, a historian must take a more critical stance towards the quality of the nasty stories related to her about Mao's personal life than Ms. Chang has.

Nonetheless there is great value to the book's analysis of Russia's role in the success of the Chinese Communist revolution. Chang Kai Shek never captured Mao because the Russians made it clear that they would end their subsidies to him if they did. The legendary long march is nothing more than that. Mao did not come to power because he mobilized the peasants. He always hated them and they always hated him. Mao came to power because the Russians captured Japan's Manchurian army after Japan surrendered and handed it over to Mao. Moreover the Russians had bribed or kidnapped close relatives of most of Chang Kai Shek's generals to that they all switched sides when ordered.

This is an extremely valuable book that could have been a great book if Ms. Chang had been more critical in judging her sources.

This is an older work that has been sitting on my shelves unread for 15 years as I focused on pre-modern China. It's only having read Jung Chang's book on the Soong sisters over the holidays that made me search for this long-forgotten title on a long-ignored shelf of similar titles. If it hadn't been necessary to eat and sleep I would have read it straight through but at 800+ pages that wasn't possible, nor was it possible to get through it in one go given all the violence and thuggery Mao caused. Pauses are important to digest what you have read and fit it into your own memories of these years. Tens of millions of people died as the direct result of this tyrant's lust for power--either in needless wars, pogroms, programmes, 'leaps forward' or just plain starvation. That smiling Buddha-like face hid from the world the black soul that was within.

I think it's important that readers know the authors' backgrounds (taken from the dust jacket): "Jung Chang was born in China in 1952. She was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen and then worked as a peasant, a 'barefoot doctor', a steelworker and an electrician before becoming an English-language student ... [and eventually working her way up to] a PhD in Linguistics in 1982--the first person from the PRC to receive a doctorate from a British University. Her co-author and partner, Jon Halliday, is a former Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College, University of London ... and has written or edited eight previous books [and probably more since this came from a 2005 dust jacket of the hardback version of the book]."

I was a student sitting in an overflowing auditorium in Boston when I first heard of the 'Cultural Revolution'; it was a talk given by three Canadian university students who had been sent out of China where they were studying when the Cultural Revolution hit. Their eyewitness reports of what they had seen and heard (destruction of cultural history, the tormenting and persecution of scholars, the vandalism and murders) made me realize that Mao was no saviour of the people but a monster. This volume reveals what today we call the 'back story'--the rationale and reasons for that particular event and in fact, Mao's entire life. His goal was absolute power, and not just in China. He sought world power and when it failed in Asia, he turned to Africa, then Southeast Asia....

The true story of Mao is still not told or known in China by most; his posters and little red books continue to be sold (mostly as 'innocent' tourist tat but having read this volume, they will make you cringe). Anyone interested in understanding China or studying Chinese history needs to read this meticulously researched (that included hundreds of interviews with many of the key witnesses now in their 80s and 90s) biography, especially if you have read in the past some of the works written by westerners who bought into Mao's stories (Agnes Smedley's works, Harrison's Long March to Power: History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-72, or the most influential of them all: Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China: The Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism). All the key players and their roles in history are here and the one who comes out the best (spoiler alert), in my opinion, is not Zhou Enlai, but Deng Xiaoping

I guess its timely to have read this book during the current pandemic and reflect on a country with a culture I knew so little about. China may be geographically a long way away, but it impacts on our daily lives in more ways than I had previously imagined. Mao had seemed a mythical person and it was shocking to think that I was 14 years old when he died - I grew up totally ignorant of the monster systematically tormenting and destroying 70 million of his own people in his goal of personal power. How can a single man have done the things he did? Why is his portrait still hanging in Tiananmen Square today? Chang tries to explain to the reader how a country of more than a billion people were terrified into utter paralysis and worse, to turn on each other - crimes of commission and omission - destroying friends and family alike. I accept her explanation only in part, since I cannot imagine that this could have happened in my own country. Culture and psychology are at play. But the west is not innocent - many countries benefitted and turned a blind eye to the years of starvation and suffering. Shameful.
We all need to read this book and reflect on the nation that we have come to depend on far too much in my opinion.

Although undoubtedly evil, this biography opens the gateway into the mind of Mao, who to all extents and purposes was a genius. And really weird.

A minutely researched story of how Mao came-to and stayed-in power, with a lot of behind the scenes information, detailed accounts from diplomatic meetings and interviews of people who came into contact with him.

Is it well written? It’s good, but not outstanding, and it feels biased. There is a wealth of interesting information on how his regime functioned, but Mao as a person doesn’t come fully through. There are some repetitions, some things are unclear, some information seems willfully omitted. The account oozes with hate, and as a result there is a feeling of a biased view there, even if there is a possibility that it isn’t.

That said, it’s definitely worth persevering through; there is a lot to be learned from it; and especially, if someone is a history buff, and if they harbour any illusions about Mao’s good intentions, or the quality of life he brought to the Chinese. Having lived in a communist country, I found it very interesting and I fully appreciate that everything written there is a true account of what was happening. Nobody in Poland had any doubts what life in China under Mao looked like anyway, and if anybody complained that there was no meat or ham to buy in the stores (because there were endless transports of pigs going to the Soviet Union as the repayment for mostly obsolete technology), people jokingly reassured themselves that the life was definitely better than in China where all the people had to eat were the flies they could catch and the leaves on the trees.

The chief purpose of the book seems to be to open Western eyes to the true nature of Mao’s regime, but I don’t think many people have a romantic view of it anymore anyway. I suppose that many Chinese would benefit from reading it, though, and especially the Chinese youth who are still brought up in the cult of Mao.

Jung Chang should not have been involved in writing a Mao biography, especially not one that is essentially considered thee Mao biography. Too blatantly biased. So much so I found myself laughing at it occasionally. After reading a lot of material by and on Mao, including another biography (the Spence one so far, I may read the Pantsov one too), I've come to completely different conclusions on the role Mao played in many of the periods and events as they are portrayed in this book. According to Chang, Mao was absolutely evil: he never got anything right, he stumbled into successes and took credit for other people's work and actions, he was all politics, he hadn't had an original thought once in his life, he hated the working class. This is Chang's Mao.

An example of this that stuck with me throughout the whole book is at the very beginning. Mao had an abusive father. There was a point in Mao's young life, where his father humiliated him physically and verbally in front of polite company, and Mao got so upset and enraged that he threatened to kill himself if his father didn't stop. The only reason that his father would even care about his life, Mao thought, was because he was his only male heir. Whether or not that was true, Mao's threat worked, and his father allegedly laid off. That's one of the saddest things I've ever heard! A child threatening to kill himself because his father won't stop beating the shit out of him and humiliating him in public? And the only reason the kid thinks the threat worked is because he happened to be a boy? Jung Chang's take was essentially, no, that wasn't upsetting, and Mao was being a p*ssy ass b*tch who should have obeyed his father and took the beatings like a man. That isn't a direct quote, but that is seriously her take! That kind of take is reflected throughout this whole book, whenever Mao does basically anything.

I'm no Mao apologist, I'm not even a maoist (I just find the guy and the period so fascinating)! But this book, while impressively and clearly painstakingly well researched, is so unhinged in it's bias, that I would really only recommend reading this if you already have a good amount of Chinese history scholarship under your belt. Seriously. If you read social histories of the time, you will get a working class perspective on Mao's communism and China. If you go into this unprepared, your brain will probably rot a little bit from the sheer malignant force of stalwart and unwavering opinion.

But I can't rate this poorly. Jung Chang herself went through absolute hell in her life, pretty much directly because of Mao's close cadres. Hard not to empathize. I don't think she is a great writer here, though some passages do weave a readable narrative. I will definitely read her book Wild Swans sometime! I have her biography of the empress dowager on deck too, but... I think I'll hold off on another one of her biographies for now.

I really wanted to write a huge, sprawling review of all the major events in Mao's China as handled by Chang's writing, but I'm too bashful about my understanding of all this stuff still. Maybe one day!

I'm currently reading The Gulag Archipelago Abridged An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn brilliant, impassioned indictment of the Soviet system of suppression and imprisonment. This paragraph from an NY Times review convinced me to read Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's biography of Mao next.

The authors assert, for example, that he was not in fact a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, as is widely believed, and that the party was founded in 1920 rather than 1921. Moreover, they rely on extensive research in Russian archives to show that the Chinese party was entirely under the thumb of the Russians. In one nine-month period in the 1920's, for example, 94 percent of the party's funding came from Russia, and only 6 percent was raised locally. Mao rose to be party leader not because he was the favorite of his fellow Chinese, but because Moscow chose him. And one reason Moscow chose him was that he excelled in sycophancy: he once told the Russians that "the latest Comintern order" was so brilliant that "it made me jump for joy 300 times."

For a counter view of Chang and Holliday's biography, read this LRB review from China scholar Andrew Nathan, whose own book The Tiananmen Papers has excited its own share of criticism. Be sure to scroll down for Chang and Halliday's point by point response. Mao: The Unknown Story certainly is controversial!

فوق العاده.
اگر توضیح بیشتر نمی خواید و حال ندارید بخونید بالا در یک کلمه نظرمو در مورد کتاب گفتم . برید دیگه باقیش توضیحه .
این کتاب انقدر خوب بود که من از نیمه های خوندنش داشتم به نوشتن در موردش فکر می کردم . حجم اطلاعات و جزئیاتی که ارائه شده واقعا خیره کننده ست . همینطور تحلیل روانشناختی در باب انگیزه های افراد برای عمل و عکس العمل هاشون و نگاه از بالا به دلایل وقوع وقایع در چین قرن بیستم .
از طرف دیگه چین از زمره کشورهایی هست که همچنان اصول رازداری و در مورد حکام و کنشگر های سیاسی خودشو رعایت می کنه و اسناد رسمی چندانی منتشر نمی کنه تازه بعضا که بکنه این اسناد از فیلتر های سانسور دولتی عبور می کنن و انقدر سر و تهشون زده می شه که چندان قابل استناد نیستن . به این دلیل هم کار نویسنده در زمان پژوهش های خودش در مورد مائو واقعا ستودنیه .
اما بزرگترین و شاید تنها ایرادی که داره اینه که نتونسته در مقابل کاراکتر خونخوار ، بی رحم و خودخواه مائو رسالت خودش به عنوان تاریخ نگار و تاریخ پژوه رو حفظ کنه و به شدت جانبدارانه و با پس زمینه ضد مائو کتاب نوشته . من به هیچ وجه من الوجوه مائوئیست یا طرفدار مائو یا دوستدار مائو نیستم که هیچ موضع کاملا برعکس دارم . اما کتاب تاریخی خوبه وقایع رو بیان کنه و قضاوت رو به عهده خواننده قرار بده . کاری که اینجا نشده . حتی خیلی جاها در کتاب این ضد مائو بودن نویسنده انقدر از کنترل خارج شده که بعضا گناهان بقیه را هم گردن مائو انداخته . آنقدر به جنایات و نقش مستقیم او در انواع خونریزی ها دامن زده و شاخ و برگ داده که در خیلی از موارد منجر به تطهیر حزب کمونیست چین و افرادی مثل پنگ دی هوای ، لین بیائو ، چو ته و ... شده است ‌. نویسنده فراموش کرده مائو هم مانند همه انسان ها دوستی برای عده ای ، پدری برای فرزندانش و همسری برای همسرانش و .... بوده است نه یک هیولای جهانخوار به ذات ! که اگر چنین بود هیچ وقت به رهبری و حکومت و ... نمی رسید . هیچ وقت این همه محب و پیرو و جان نثار پیدا نمی کرد . خلاصه که همه تقصیر ها گردن مائو نبود . هرچند تقصیری که گردن اوست آنقدر زیاد است که به راحتی قابل وصف نیست .
مائو مجموعا (مستقیم و غیر مستقیم ) مسول قتل حدود ۷۰ میلیون انسان است . این جرم به قدری بزرگ هست که لازم نباشد غیر مستقیم ها را هم مستقیم جلوه دهیم .
خلاصه اگر با خواندن یک خلاصه حدود ۱۰۰ صفحه ای از چین و انقلاب سرخش و قرن بیستم این سرزمین راضی نمی شوید بهتر است این کتاب فوق العاده را بخوانید . اگر انقدرها هم گذشته ها برایتان مهم نیست ، اینطرفی نیایید .
مجموعا به بنده در این روزهای مطالعه این کتاب خیلی خوش گذشت .

This book could be a bit biased against Mao. Well, may be more than a bit. But overall it was very informative and well constructed. It's a very long book though and it will require much effort and patience (it took me 3 months probably, on and off), but it was worth it.

چند فصل اول کتاب را خواندم و تصمیم گرفتم که به خواندن ادامه ندهم به چند دلیل:

الف) در این صد و خورده ای صفحه مائو به عنوان فردی کاملا خودخواه، چه بسا بی استعداد، تن آسا،بدون قدرت رهبری و سخنوری، بدون اعتقاد به ایدئولوژی خاصی، بدون ذره ای تعهد به هیچ چیز جز قدرت شخصی و خشونت و هزاران صفت منفی و رذایل اخلاقی دیگر ترسیم شده. انسانی کاملا تک بعدی که حداقل در بخش هایی از کتاب که تا الان خوانده ام نحوۀ شکل گیری شخصیت و خط فکریش هنوز برای من خواننده نامشخص است، کتاب تنها دلیلی که تا کنون برای تصمیم ها و کارهای مائو به خواننده داده است فرصت طلبی و شهوت کسب قدرت است. از تاثیر آدمهای دیگر بر شخصیت مائو و همچنین تعامل او با آدمهای دیگر، یا از نقش دیگران در سیر تاریخی وقایع اطلاع زیادی داده نشده است.

ب) رجوع کردم به چند نقد آکادمیک از کتاب. بخصوص به مجموعه ای مقاله که نویسندگانش همگی محقق یا متخصص چین یا آسیای دور هستند. اکثر این نقدها هم به موارد بالا اشاره کرده اند و هم ایرادهای اساسی گرفته اند به نحوۀ ارجاع دهی و روش تحقیق نویسندگان این کتاب. مثلا نویسندگان کتاب مائو عمدتا به آثار تحقیقی و آکادمیک موجود درباره مائو رجوع نکرده اند مگر جاهایی که نظر مطرح شده در منبع یا مرجعی با نظر آنها موافق بوده باشد. یا اینکه در بسیاری موارد تفسیر نادرست و خلاف واقعیت از مطالب منابع موجود ارائه داده اند.

به دو دلیل بالا عطای این کتاب را به لقایش بخشیدم.

منبعی که در (ب) به آن رجوع کرد ام این است:
Benton, G., & Chun, L. (Eds.). (2013). Was Mao really a monster?: the academic response to Chang and Halliday’s" Mao: the unknown story". Routledge.