I think the best words to describe
Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the founder of Communist China, are those he said when
he was young: Battling with heaven, the joy is limitless; battling with Earth,
the joy is limitless; battling with people, the joy is limitless. As far as his
life and his impact on the country he controlled from 1949 to 1976, Mao was as
good as those words. The West and the former Soviet Union used to complain about the bellicose
cock like China under the Communist rule. It was
really the spirit of Mao himself, and it represented neither Chinese people nor
all the party members. Mao turned his country, his government, and his family
upside down many times over, and left no stone unturned. He certainly practiced
those three phrases through his whole life. If we put what he said aside and
study the way of his thinking, it is not surprising to find some strong
elements of Chinese tradition, especially Taoism.
Mao was, of course, not a sincere and
conscious Taoist thinker. But we can, nevertheless, understand Mao and his China much better if we adapt to a Taoist
perspective. Karl Marx once said, I am not a Marxist
myself.What Marx meant is that he did
not practice Marxism but he certainly believed in the system he had developed
and promoted. Mao used to say he believed in Confucianism in his early years
but changed to Marxism later. However, I think Mao's thought is far away from
Marxism or Confucianism but close to Taoism. Marxism is often criticized for
its economy-determinist view. The influence of economic determinism on human
thought and behaviour became traceless in Mao's China. Mao stressed the importance of
political ideology and carried out an ever-lasting battle against those who had
a tendency to economy-determinism. In the Great Cultural Revolution, whoever
had some connection with economy, or agricultural/industrial production was
subjected to Mao's attacks. According to Marx, Proletarian revolution only
occurs after the whole world has entered into highly developed capitalist
society. Mao labelled his revolution of peasants with Marxism. If we dismiss
the part Lenin and Mao creatively added to Marxism, namely, separate Marxism
from Leninism and Maoism, there is nothing of Marxism but old Chinese tradition
in Mao's thought.
As to the Chinese traditional
ideology, many authors have written on the influence of Confucianism on Mao.
But I think Mao is closer to Taoism but farther away from Confucianism. In
Chinese history, intellectuals were Confucians in the government office but
Taoists at home. They relied on Taoist teachings to live an idle rural life,
pursuing self-wellbeing. Both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu
quoted the Chinese self-sufficient rural economy as their ideal society. As the
result, the dominant ideology was not Confucianism but Taoism in Chinese
countryside.
If there was still some trace of
Confucian influence in the Chinese rural areas, it was confined in the
intellectual households. What peasants were fond of were Buddhism and Taoism,
and they regarded Confucianism as something for educated people. Mao's family
was not an intellectual one: his father was an ordinary peasant who had been a
soldier and a merchant. He was fiercely opposite to Mao's further education to
become an intellectual. Mao's mother was a believer in Buddhism. Mao and his
mother once discussed how to persuade Mao's father to believe in Buddhism.
After running away from a tiger, his father did come to Buddhism and
occasionally worshiped Buddha in the temples. In China most people could not tell Buddhism
from Taoism but few failed to notice the difference between Confucianism and
Taoism/Buddhism. Ordinary people like Mao's father never went to a Confucian
temple, which was apparently not a proper place for them. Buddhism is far away
from politics but Taoism is quite different. There is a strong political
element in Taoism, which advocates equality. Mao's hometown was within the
reach of the Society of Brothers, a peasant organization influenced by Taoist
ideology. Therefore, Mao's family was at the level where the ideology was
Taoism. Mao was soaked with the spirit of Taoism through what he saw and heard
during his early childhood.
Chou En-lai's
family was different, a traditional intellectual household. His lifestyle,
graceful and poised, was close to the Confucius's golden mean, since he
received a good Confucian education at home in his early years. Mao was also
taught the five classics and the four books but during a period of cultural
transition from the old to the new, it fell short of letting him surpass his
family's influence.
Mao's many biographies mentioned how
sympathy to the poor Mao was as a child: he worked with Mother against his
father's will; he gave rice to those who needed; he even collaborated with the
labourers against his father's interest. These are believable but common in
rural China where the father struggled to
increase his fortune while children and women doled out alms. Lao Tzu says,
“Heaven and earth coalesce and it rains sweet dew. The people, no one ordering
them, self balance to equality.” “The Tao of nature is to pare back abundance
and add to the insufficient.”(Tao Te Ching, Chapters
32, 77) Thus according to Taoist theory, it is our nature to self balance to
equality by helping the poor, and wealth-building comes from our culture.
Children and women are less contaminated by modern culture in comparison to
men.
Modern society is secondary society,
which is different from the ancient primary society. With the size averaging
around 150, people interacted with each other by face in primary society such as tribes and bands. Primary society was the natural
extension of human genetic nature, and there was no force to model human nature
in a fixed direction. Thus it was peaceful and egalitarian. The human instincts
were enough to keep the society in harmony. All members were linked
psychologically and emotionally into a whole of which everybody was only a
part. We, as individuals, cannot psychologically and emotionally link us to
modern society. The wholeness of a secondary society is the result of shared
belief and social structure. (For further reference, please visit the web site:
http://taoism21cen.com)
Taoism has the egalitarian primary
society as its ideal. In comparison with cities, Chinese countryside is closer
to primary society. In the mainland China, peasants are traditionally said to
be believers in ultra-equalitarianism, which is in fact the Taoist ideal. Since
such an ideal is not compatible with modern society, authority labelled it as
ultra-equalitarianism. Among the Chinese Communist leaders, Mao's thought was
much closer to Taoist egalitarianism than the others. That's why he put most
leaders aside and was headstrong in pursuing some ultra-leftist policies such
as the Great Cultural Revolution.
Some scholars say Chinese dynasties
all adapted to Huang Lao (Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu) at the core but dressed
up as Confucianism. We can also say Mao was Huang Lao at the core but put on a
face of Marxism. Mao led his country into an endless chaos, and people call it
sarcastically running cycles of malarial fever. When one is suffering from
malaria, he has a fever every two days but becomes normal between. Mao's
political movements were all like that, and achieving nothing except for
exhaustion. In the end, it was consisted with the Taoist principle: non-action
though not intentionally. After Mao died, China has progressed rapidly in economy,
arts, ideology and so on, and even the landscape changes with each passing day
and passing month. Under such a contrast, Mao's China was really chaotic non-action.
Marx saw capitalism as the final stage in the
evolution of human society, like a man of advanced age suffering from incurable
cancer, and he prescribed communism as the remedy. Mao mixed it up with his
childhood dream, which was also the Chinese poor peasants' dream, a simple,
peaceful life free of inequality and exploitation. It is amazing that Mao as
the leader of the most populous country in the modern world did not envision
any necessary changes in the new horizons brought up by various revolutions in
the Western world since the Renaissance. On the contrary, Mao battled fiercely
against those who had some new vision. He literally suffocated all progressive
ideas.
Half of Mao's bed was piled up with
ancient Chinese books, from which one may speculate how his family life was.
Mao envied other Chinese leaders' happy families and complaining his was an
exception. He spent his last birthday with a group of young women, nurses and
secretaries. His wife, JiangQing,
cooked his favourite fish soup as a birthday present in order to ask for a
chance to see him. He asked one of those girls to deliver his message: “Leave
the soup and do not come in!”When I was
a student at PekingUniversity, Mao's daughter was there too. It
was said that the daughter could see him only on special occasions. During the
Great Cultural Revolution, JiangQing
was once complaining with tears in front of an audience of more than ten
thousands that class struggle had been carried out into her family. Her unusual
remarks frightened Mao's daughter-in-law so much that she ran away hidden
immediately.
According to his private physician,
Mao lived a very simple life: He often wore pajamas
all day and only dressed up for receiving guests. Even then he wore only shorts
to show his scorn for world powers when he received Khrushchev at his swimming
pool. He never brushed his teeth, and never took a bath or shower. Mao lived in
the ImperialPark inside the Forbidden City where he grew vegetables instead of
flowers in his garden. Once he said, “You may grow flowers in public places. It
is no good to have flowers in private areas, where we should grow more useful
plants such as vegetables and fruits.” After these remarks, thousands of potted
plants were removed from private homes and left along the streets. Nearly three
decades have passed since his death. His children have reached their later
years but all of them lived as ordinary citizens, unlike later national leaders
whose children either reached nationally prominent positions or became
millionaires overnight. Mao's daughter's worn-out and patched clothes invited
comments: You are the only one who wears such shabby clothes in the capital.
Land reform, or the equal
distribution of land ownership, was not very successful in other countries
except China. The equal distribution of land and
the limiting of landholding had occurred in Chinese history as a persistent
policy, though Mao was the original promoter of this policy in a new era. When
Mao launched his land reform campaign, China was a country of peasants with a few
landlords and a few landless peasants. The majority of peasants had a piece of
land of their own. This was strikingly different from the Middle Age Europe
where landowners and serfs were the rule. The major reason for this difference
was the influence of Taoist philosophy which praised a simple rural life of
equality. With landless peasants, Europe eventually commercialized its
agriculture while under Mao’s leadership, the Chinese peasant still abided by
the piece of land, which became smaller and smaller with time passing,
contemplating the same dream handed down through thousands of years.
In the first fifty years of the last
century, there were numerous wars in China which eventually stirred up the
peaceful peasants, far the majority of Chinese population. This let their
demands enter the main political stage, and Mao emerged among rivals with their
voice. Just think, every body stood up with a gun but did not have any bread,
could it be anything else other than Communism? Mao read Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu when he was young, but his mind was active with
the gathering heroes of the popular Chinese novel The Three Kingdoms. Taoism,
in Mao’s view, advocates only non-action in politics. Some scholars have
pointed out that Mao held a negative view over Lao Tzu until his late years.
Those scholars drew their conclusions from Mao’s words, speeches and articles.
Psychological studies have clearly shown that we are still largely
relying on our unconscious to make decisions in our daily life. One’s
unconscious is often linked to his childhood memories. Mao’s childhood mind was
no doubt dominated by Taoist ideology. Mao’s self-sufficiency, rural communes
and so on are all reflections of the Taoist utopia deep in his mind and have
nothing to do with Marxism.
Mao often quoted from Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu but it was often superficially coherent in
context. For example, Mao wrote “Lao Tzu says no move is the first importance”
in his article On Physical Education published in 1917 but Lao Tzu never
said such words. Mao apparently quoted only from his vague memories and
impression since Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu were so
deeply rooted in Chinese culture and language and no one can avoid them. When
Mao was overexcited over his victory in 1949 after millions lost their lives,
Mao wrote in his article Goodbye, John Leighton Stuart : “ Lao Tzu says People are not
afraid of death, how can you use death to make them fear?” Mao’s mood and
thought expressed in that article were only the opposite to
Lao Tzu who advocates to celebrate victory with funeral. The Comments Mao wrote
on Chuang Lu’s Biography, however, reveal the Taoist
ideology in the depth of Mao’s mind. From the following quotation, one can see
clearly Mao had put Marxism aside and linked himself to those peasant leaders
in Chinese history:
The mass health care movement
described in Chuang Lu's Biography is like our
People's Commune's free health care…free meals at the roadside shops are most
interesting…it was the pioneer of our public canteens in the People's Communes.
That's about 1600 years ago …but it remains the same through those years that
massive poor peasants dream of equality, freedom, out of poverty, enough food
and clothes…they showed the trend of primitive socialism without full
awareness...our People's Communes are rooted far in Chinese history…
Among the so-called hundred schools
of thought, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu are the only ones
who ignored all authorities from both heaven and earth, and who acted
independently on what they deem proper. Chuang Tzu is
noted by his bold and unconstrained remarks: “I, heaven, and earth were born
together, and I share the same body with the universe.”Modern scholars classify Chuang
Tzu as one of those recluses and hermits, whose words, how heroic and boundless
they may be, only affect their own lives.Mao once used the post-pause expression, popular in Northern Chinese
rural areas, telling the American reporter Edgar P. Snow (1905-1972), “I am a
monk holding an umbrella.” The literal translation of those words caused
serious misunderstanding: Mao was lonely, holding an umbrella in a gloomy rainy
day. In fact, Mao meant through those words, “I respect neither God nor law.”
This Godless/lawless figure Mao was unfortunately a living God over his land
and his people. The tragic results have been known to all.
Mao rebelled against his
father when he was Child. He first rose to the top in the party in the 1930s
when he acted against orders from the Communist International. He later refused
a peace proposal by Stalin and attacked the Soviet leaders publicly soon after
Stalin’s death. In spite of strong resistance inside the party, Mao pushed
forward the agricultural collectivization, and eventually led to the disastrous
Great Leap Forward campaign. Millions died of starvation, and Mao was left
isolated in front of the popular opposition force inside the government. Mao
had mastered the Huang Lao arts of political trickery hiding his intentions and
biding the time. Several years later, he single-handedly launched the Great
Cultural Revolution to condemn all government officials in the name of a new
revolution. To Mao’s dismay, the revolutionary cadres became bureaucrats once
they were in the government office. Thus there was a need for another
revolution to remove them. The revolution became continuous since one required
another. No matter how many revolutions were there, Mao himself was the only
exception, and no revolution could touch him.
In modern society, we all have
several roles to play: we are husband and wife, parent and child at home,
employees or workers in the company, and citizens in a country. Society uses
those roles to organize all people into a social network. During the Cultural
Revolution, Mao once said gangjumuzhang, once you pull up the head rope of a network
such as a fishing net, all its meshes open. In his view among the complex
network of millions of Chinese people there is a head rope which he pulls will
move all Chinese people. This seemingly simple
mechanism shows how our society works. In contrast to the money-based Western
society, Chinese society was said to be official-rank-based. If this was the
case, the official ranking system should be highly developed with noticeable
differences between different ranks. But this was contradicting to Mao’s
egalitarian ideology. As a result Mao launched the Four Clean-up Movement
followed by the Cultural Revolution, which smashed the newly set up
bureaucratic system. Thus the ranking system was no longer enough to motivate
the officials, let alone the ordinary people. It was inevitable to fall back on
violence and terror which Mao and his colleagues were fond of through their
experience in the warring era.
Since the rebellion of the citizens
in the capital during the rein of King Zhoulie (841
BC), Chinese peasant uprisings were particularly common. The dynasties of Han
and Ming were established by massive uprising with upper classes changing their
places with the lower ones, like tossing over a pancake, which was never seen
in the West. In modern Chinese history, the Nationalists overthrew the Ching dynasty and had not stabilized their ruling yet while
Communist uprising succeeded in driving the Nationalists out of the mainland China. Only ten years after the People's
Republic was founded, Mao directed his spearhead of attack at his party
officials, culminating in the Cultural Revolution's seizing over the power and
setting up the Shanghai Commune. This was apparently a copy of the Paris
Commune in the 1789 French Revolution. The society then split into two factions
in a life-and-death struggle. Born in a family of old government officials,
Chou En-Lai was familiar with such games. He called the two-faction-struggle
tossing over the pancake. When this faction was in power, the
other faction was the downside being baked by the hot pan, either tortured in
prison or locked inside a cowshed. Once the other faction was out of prison
and in power, it started to bake this faction with the hot pan. The final goal
of such tossing-over-the-pancake revolution is to achieve an egalitarian
secondary society, which was apparently impossible in Chinese history. Mao's
senseless tossing about was only a miniature of such a Chinese history.
In the book A New Interpretation
of Chinese Taoist Philosophy, I compared the Axial China with modern Europe and found amazing similarity between
the two. But the French Revolution was the main driving force behind social reform
in modern Europe while Chinese social reform was
carried out by kings and their ministers. In fact Chinese peasant uprisings
never aimed clearly at any social reform but only tossing-over-pancake like
dynastic changes. Such changes of dynasties were aiming to a final egalitarian
society.
In the early 1950s, Chinese peasants
called themselves the self existence king, which means they were leisurely and
carefree but content with oneself like a king happy in their own world. Except
when there was war or disaster, Chinese rural life was peaceful and stable like
Lao Tzu says: Enjoy the tastiness of your food, admire the beauty of your
clothing, delight yourself with your home and its environment, and be happy
with your culture. There was plenty of spare time and at least nothing to
do in the whole winter. There were numerous festivals each year with all
entertaining activities between, let alone the grand ceremonies at weddings and
funerals when often than not farming work was put aside and all villagers joined
in. In compared to modern urban life, Chinese rural life is much closer to
Taoist ideal lifestyle.
To organize the spare time of those
peasants into new developments, either economic or artistic, at high levels, a
social structure of secondary society is essential. Without such a social
structure readily available, peasants have to spend their spare time in their
traditional way. Under the influence of Taoism, Chinese history was one to wipe
out the middle class of vassals and lords and put peasants directly under the
emperor and his court. According to some scholars, the class of vassals and
lords finally collapsed in Song dynasty (960-1279). As not much room left for
intellectuals to actualize their ambitions, they turned into their inner world
to develop the New Confucianism headed by Cheng and Chu. Mao’s words, Battling with
heaven, the joy is limitless; battling with Earth, the joy is limitless;
battling with people, the joy is limitless, sound as if he was very
ambitious but still within the boundary of his childhood dream. His life
struggle may become the last battle against the middle class in Chinese
history.
In the Taoist traditions, there is no
place for democracy. Taoism advocates equality, frugality, kindness, and
modesty which may have similar social functions in creating a feeling of
fairness. The water course way of thinking in Taoism, however, developed into
the so-called art of political trickery, and the godless view developed into
ruthlessness in power struggles in the hands of ancient Chinese politicians.
Mao showed those characteristics once he was in the leadership position of the
party after 1935.
When Mao joined the Chinese Communist
Party, ideas of social reform, freedom, and democracy had spread to China. The Communist Party had its
conventional rules for electing its leaders. Mao put all those conventions
aside to build his personal web of power. Nobody could challenge him whether he
was right or wrong. Before him, leaders had changed every few years but Mao
held that position for forty one years until he died without appointing a
successor. His Taoist style of political trickery and manipulation became
apparent in his last fifteen years or so. In a way he played hide and seek with
his high ranking officials. He relied on his secretary, service people, guards,
and even his dance partners for information. This also reflected his lacking of
ability to deal with other people in equal terms but showing fully patriarchal
behaviour. As a result, Chinese diplomatic relations with other countries once
fell into embarrassing isolation.
Chuang Tzu was one of Mao’s favourite books and
Li Po, a Taoist, was his favorite poet. Chuang Tzu’s carefree boundless style was also seen in
Mao’s speeches and writings. Li Po’s romantic unconstrained style was also seen
in Mao’s poetry.
Yin and Yang are important concepts
of Taoism, seeing the opposite complementary forces inside all things and
entities which lead everything to change toward its opposite: The weak becomes
strong, and the strong becomes weak. That’s what it means in Chapter 40, Tao
Te Ching:
That which is converse is the action
of Tao;
That which is weak is the use of Tao.
Tao Te Ching is short but elaborates this
Yin/Yang principle repeatedly in different verses. By different names such as two
point or two side methods or dialectics, this Taoist principle became Mao’s
favourite topic and appears everywhere in his works and speeches. This
principle of course also applies to Mao himself: Such a glorious revolutionary
life and such a super powerful figure ended his days in his isolated bedroom
observing the keenly impatient desire of his colleagues to see his death. His
voice was so a weak and tiny whisper when he begged,would
you please lift your lordly hands and let them go after my death! The
Chinese official interpretation says the word “them” in those Mao’s words refers to the
rebels who reached high positions through the Cultural Revolution. From the
context and circumstances, it is crystal clear that Mao worried about his wife
and her friends, the Gang of Four. Did they let them go? No, and they didn’t.
Fifteen years after Mao’s death, people celebrated again over the death of
Mao’s wife who committed suicide in prison.
(click the
above bookcover to read part of the book)
It is a great book, interesting
and informative. Everyone who
has read it almost always says,
"It is a wonderful book!" Very
limited numbers of copies
available.
讀者留言﹕"視角獨
特﹐學術價值較高
﹐作者國學根
底很深。"
數量不多﹐
賣完為止!!!
$9.00 per copy
Chinese edition 401 pages; 中文版﹐401頁﹐書後有文獻與索引 點擊上書封面可閱讀部份章節
