Reading the Private Life of Mao Zedong: Mao in Politics

I split my thoughts about my reading of the Private Life of Chairman Mao into two videos because while the stuff about Mao’s personality and private life are scandalous and worthy of note, they kind of steal attention away from other stuff. So I wanted to get that done first. Here, we talk about Mao’s politics and political actions, which are such a bundle of contradictions that I sometimes cannot help but play armchair psychologist.

Part 1 of the book review deals with Mao the man.

[shockwave]

Mao always saw himself as an underdog guerilla leader. His Marxist ideals certainly lay the groundwork for this, but I think his peasant background also played a big part in the formulation of his own world views and derivative theory. He fundamentally believed a wealthy, highly developed society no longer had any revolutionary potential to overthrow the Capitalist system they had gotten fat off of, and that Socialism would instead materialize primarily in the third-world, where Capitalism was causing the most harm to the working and peasant class.

This idea, combined with he himself being from the peasantry, led to Mao’s massive distrust of intellectuals, which he regarded as out of touch with the working masses and hence were bourgeois collaborators that were incapable of building Socialism. To Mao, only those of a similar upbringing to himself could consciously fight the class struggle against the Capitalist class. This may have led him to criticizing the Soviet leadership as “Social Imperialists” that betrayed the ideals upheld by Lenin; a criticism that has some merit I believe. However, the consequences of this line of thinking can also be seen in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

[Zincgton]

I read this book many years ago and it was such an important primer for me to understanding Chinese politics. Cultural Revolution was Mao's way of asserting control and his own survival. Great Leap Forward was a failure and he was made redundant and likely be forced to be retired if he did not take action. Later, Deng's launch of capitalist socialism was also for the sake of China's own survival, indirectly for himself as well. Both Great Leap Forward Cultural Revolution had so destroyed China's economy and they were facing a military threat from Soviet Union. The demise of China and CCP is imminent after 2 failed revolutions hence it was the critical basis for Deng to restructure China with very daring methods.

To this day, many glimpses from this book still echo today in understanding China's politics now. It was no different. Xi Jinping's striving to assert himself through the anti-corruption campaign was for his own survival. After having purged so many, he needed to remove term limits for his presidency so that his enemies will not have a chance to retaliate.

Power struggles and intrigues in CCP are the basis for today's China and what she will become. You cannot understand China if you do not understand the power dynamics of these political figures. They do not trust each other ever and everything is done through pure material calculation to survive in the system.

[cturner]

I’ve never watched very much analysis on Chinese leaders like Mao. Keep up the good work!

[melwinmartinsson]

Can you explain the chinese one party state system? Beacuse there is 8 parties legally in China, woukd be nice if you could explain more about it

[weedrd]

I enjoy watching your video book reviews. Do you have an opinion on Yu Hua's work? Regardless, keep up the good work!

[jasonleetaiwan]

I do believe the quote about Taiwan because he could have easily taken Jinmen but did not by choosing to use it as a battleground to keep the civil war going. He liked conflict with the Nationalists to keep himself in power in the CCP.

[baddudecornpop]

Mao not brushing his teeth bc he knows no one is gonna say sht to him; kind of a chad move😂