Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang (PDF)

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The most authoritative life of the Chinese leader every written, Mao: The Unknown Story is based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao’s close circle in China who have never talked before — and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned, and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao’s rule — in peacetime.

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⭐Preliminary Note to the readers: This is A Review of Mao — The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 2005, 814 pages. But I have chosen to include this Preliminary Note before the formal review for reasons that will soon become apparent. This authoritative biography and history comes in a hefty tome illustrated with many rare photographs as well as detailed Maps of specific areas discussed in the text, which actually ends on page 631. The supportive material includes an additional 85 pages of meticulously compiled Notes followed by a comprehensive Bibliography of Chinese as well as Non-Chinese Sources. There is also an Index and a List of Interviewees and Archives Consulted.Although I have considerable experience with Amazon Reviews, I found the early Reviews (and negative comments and votes in the thousands) shocking. The book was appreciated by most readers; nevertheless it ended up unjustly with 3.6 stars out of 5 rating because of an unfair, orchestrated political campaign of vilification of which Mao himself would have been proud. This reminds me, frankly, of the Active Measures and Disinformation Department of the Soviet KGB, although of course this orchestration would be directed, not from Moscow, but from Beijing and bolstered by the remaining bastions of Marxism in Western academia. The brief Epilogue in Mao (page 631) reads: “Today, Mao’s portrait and his corpse still dominate Tiananmen Square in the heart of the Chinese capital. The current Communist regime declares itself to be Mao’s heir and fiercely perpetuates the myth of Mao.” The same can be said for the followers of Mao in the West, who have fiercely attacked the courageous authors for revealing that the Chinese idol of communism was indeed rotten at the core! My sincere congratulations to the authors, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, for this powerful exposé on Mao and The People’s Republic of China.Review per se: This superb, comprehensive and authoritative biography of Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) as well as a history of China in the 20th century has a very appropriate subtitle — “The Unknown Story” — because much of the information here is not well known and is not found in other books on Mao or China. As such, the authors, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, should be commended for their herculean task, vivid narration, and encyclopedic scholarship.Among the many revelations, Mao — The Unknown Story, depicts and documents Chairman Mao as the brutal monster he really was; how Mao desolated his own country, exterminated his own people — party cadres and impoverished peasants, alike, even whole Red Army regiments. Mao committed in his blind rage whatever crimes were necessary to attain and preserve supreme political power. “democracy,” “justice,” “equality,” ” fraternity,” “freedom” were just words to be used for propaganda purposes, not ideals to be pursued by Chinese communists!Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), another paranoid-megalomaniac and monster, who committed untold atrocities — e.g., purges, executions, mass starvation, deaths by fatigue in labor camps in the Gulag, rule by terror, etc. — shared some characteristics with Mao, yet there were differences. Stalin, at least, had personal appeal as a Soviet vozdh, who could inspire leadership; in Stalin fear was mixed with awe and even admiration, as the vozdh ruled the Soviet Union with a dictatorial iron fist.Stalin was noticed by Lenin, who recognized his usefulness, first as a bandit, who could obtain funds for the Party; later, as a hard-working administrator, a man who could help Lenin and the Party reach power and rule a communist Russia. Stalin worked hard for the Bolsheviks behind the scenes and gradually achieved supreme power because his abilities were underestimated. A comparison of Stalin with Mao is instructive in understanding the enigmatic personality of Mao in all his savagery. Unlike Stalin, Mao was lazy, insubordinate, and disliked by all who knew him. Yet, Mao seized power by duplicity, forced his subordinates to kowtow to him in abject submission; at times, he even defied Stalin and the Soviets who sustained him with money, arms, and assistance of all kind, and got away with it! Mao killed 70 million of his own people, turned the Red Bases in which he ruled into impoverished wastelands, but with subterfuge, propaganda, and American moles in the FDR administration eventually came to rule all of Mainland China for twenty-seven disastrous years. And during all those years in power Mao never took a bath and only rarely brush his teeth! And yet he was respected as a communist statesman and head of state of the most populous nation on earth.Mao was hated and feared by all his followers, including the subservient Chou En-lai (1898-1976), ruling by absolute terror, without any principles of government, strategic foresight or judicious planning for the betterment of his country. Despite the mythic heroics of the Long March, the Chinese Civil War or the Sino-Japanese War, the fact is Mao never inspired his troops. Mao was lazy and used subterfuge and deceit to seize power from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and obtain the title of “Chairman” from Stalin. Power was not gained by Mao by merit or recognition from the Party at large, but by subterfuge, intimidation of, and threats to the individual members of his inner circle Politburo.Mao ruled the Yenan Red Base for over a decade, before and during World War II. The province was devastated by mismanagement and plundering by the Red Army, turned into a wasteland under Mao’s communist dictatorship. Independent thought and action were punished. All goods and implements of labor were seized from the peasants to force them into compliance. Opium was cultivated and sold with all profits going to Mao’s communists while the people starved. Yenan’s population was decimated, impoverishment became rampant, much worse than under the Nationalist rule of Chiang Kai-shek. Mao’s Yenan Red Base was a government from hell, a prelude to what was to happen to the nation, once the Chairman seized control of all of China in the Mainland.Mao sacrificed his family members for political ends. Wives, brothers, sons and daughters were left behind, deliberately abandoned to be shot by the Nationalists or die destitute in poor villages throughout China. Mao betrayed whole communist armies, when they happen to be led by military rivals. Red soldiers were led to their deaths, by irresponsible decisions or deliberately, to be decimated based only on Mao’s maintenance of power and the elimination of competitors. The army of rival Chang Kuo-t’ao, the greatest and most successful army in the Long March (1934-35), was sent to the desolate northwest district to be deliberately betrayed and exterminated – thousands of soldiers buried alive, sacrificed by Mao for his own political ends, for Mao supreme power was always paramount in all decisions.This book also describes in graphic detail how China was delivered to Mao Tse-tung with active Soviet military assistance in Northern China, as well as the tacit consent of Britain and the U.S., misled by such moles as Owen Lattimore and Lauchlin Currie in the FDR administration. Little is know that Stalin attacked and occupied Outer Mongolia, seized portions and important posts in Manchuria, and expropriated the strategic Eastern China Railway. Mao received the help he needed; while Chiang Kai-shek was sidelined and betrayed.The story of how Stalin helped Mao in the civil war that ensued immediately after Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945 has not been told before. The Russo-Mongolian Soviet army, 1.5 million strong, swept through and invaded all of Northern China across a 5,000 kilometer front, longer than the European front that stretched from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea. Stalin ordered this army to continue to advance for several weeks, helping Mao take control and giving him territories and large caches of arms left by the Japanese that would boost Mao in the ensuing Civil War against Chiang. The occupied territory in northern China, inner Mongolia and Manchuria, was larger than that occupied by the Soviets in Eastern Europe.Moles in the FDR administration continued to act on the behalf of Mao and Stalin and against the United States, by slandering Chiang and exulting Mao. Mao was supposed to have fought the Japanese, while Chiang was not doing any fighting. The opposite was the truth. Except for one military campaign against the Japanese, fought in 1940 by the Red Army Commander Peng Dehuai (contravening Mao’s orders not to engage the Japanese), the Red Army had done little against the Japanese, as Mao wanted to keep his army intact for his ultimate confrontation with Chiang. One of Mao’s order to his Army was “retreat when the enemy advances,” which they did in almost all occasions. Chiang’s Nationalist Army, on the other hand, fought all the major engagements of World War II, while the Reds retreated to occupy territories left behind by the advancing Japanese. Chang and Halliday write: “In Burma, they [the Nationalists] put more Japanese out of action in one campaign than the entire Communist army had in eight years in the whole of China.” (P.287) So how did Mao win China? You need to read this book.And what happened to Mao’s closest comrades-in-arms — those whom he had tamed, humiliated and terrorized for nearly half a century, from the founding of the CCP in 1927 to Mao’s death in 1976?Chou En-lai was the charming face Mao presented to the world for diplomatic and propaganda purposes. Chou was probably the most gifted and conscientious follower; yet, he continued to serve Mao as a virtual slave, fawning over the Chairman, always submissive, frequently made to recant his “past mistakes,” When Chou developed bladder cancer in 1974, Mao refused to allow Chou to receive treatment ,so that Chou would proceed him in death. Chou continued to work even on his deathbed, trying unsuccessfully to moderate the Cultural Revolution, end the state of anarcho-tyranny, and keep the People’s Republic of China (PRC) running.Lin Piao (1907-1971) was the youngest of Mao’s henchmen and participated in the Long March as a military commander. He was Mao’s strong supporter throughout the Civil War and later headed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). He became Mao’s designated successor during the Cultural Revolution, but then mysteriously disappeared. Only later did the world learn that he (and other members of his family) was implicated in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate Chairman Mao. Lin, his wife, and son were killed in a plane crash in Manchuria while attempting mysteriously to escape to the USSR.Liu Shao-ch’i (1898-1969) participated in the Long March, helped Mao rule and consolidate power in Yenan, and was appointed political commissar for the reconstituted New 4th Army. He was once designated successor to Mao as “Closest Comrade in Arms.” After Mao’s victory over Chiang Kai-shek and the establishment of Red China (PRC), Liu tried to exert a moderation in the radicalism of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1959), for which he later paid a heavy price. During the Cultural Revolution, Liu became a target. He and his family were imprisoned and tortured. He died a lingering and agonizing death in prison in 1969.Jiang Qing (1914-1991), “Mme Mao,” was Mao’s fourth wife and companion. During the Cultural Revolution she was the head of the notorious “Gang of Four” deposed by Deng Xiaoping after Mao’s death. At her trial, she retorted, “I was Chairman Mao’s dog. Whoever Chairman Mao asked me to bite. I bit.” She was imprisoned and committed suicide in 1991.Chang Kuo-t’ao (1897-1979) was the commander of the largest and most successful army during the Long March, acting independent of Mao. Later, his army was destroyed by Mao’s treachery (1936-1937). Chang renounced communism, escaped Yenan, and joined the Nationalist Army in the Civil War (1946-1949). He was fortunate to escape to Taiwan and died in Canada in 1979. The other military commanders, as we have seen and will see further, were not as fortunate as Chang.Zhu De (1886-1976) was one of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), participating in the Nanchang Uprising of 1927 that formed the Red Army. Zhu and Mao led the Zhu-Mao Army in the south, and with the advent of the Long March, Zhu was one of the military commanded. Later, he headed the 8th Route Army with Peng Dehuai during the Sino-Japanese War. During the Civil War of 1946-1949, Zhu commanded the PLA. After the victory over Chiang and the Nationalists, and the formation of the PRC, like Peng Dehuai, he awarded a “Marshall of the People’s Republic of China.” But, Mao did not let bygones be bygones, and Zhu was later humiliated and disgraced during the Cultural Revolution because of “past mistakes.”Peng Dehuai (1898-1974) was another Long March participant, along with Chang Kuo-t’ao perhaps the best Red Army military commander. He re-energyzed the communist army during the Sino-Japanese war and commanded the “Hundred Regiments,” the victorious campaign and the only major battle the communists fought against Japan (August-December, 1940). He was to pay later for that victorious campaign, an engagement that had not been authorized by Mao. He became a target and victim of the Cultural Revolution, as Mao had a long and unforgiving memory. Peng was dragged in the street and beaten to death by Maoist Red Guards in 1974.In short, Mao’ legacy is one of unadulterated brutality and repressive dictatorship with no respect for life, liberty or justice. It is no coincidence that Mao’s greatest disciples were notable psychopaths: Pol Pot (1925-1998 ) who killed one million of his own people in Cambodia; and Abimael “Gonzalo” Guzman (1934- ), who exterminated thousands of the indigenous peasants of Peru leading the Maoist terrorist organization, Sendero Luminoso, the “Shining Path” guerillas.Despite its size at 814 pages, the book reads in enthralling, novelistic fashion with fast-paced, flowing narrative. Truly this is a magnificent book worth reading. I agree with Simon Sebag Montefiore who praised this tome in The Sunday Times of London, as ” A triumph that exposes its subject as probably the most disgusting of the bloody troika of 20th-century tyrant-messiahs, in terms of character, deeds — and number of victims. This is the first intimate, political biography of the greatest monster of them all — the Red Emperor of China.” I can not recommend this tome higher for those interested in the history of revolutions and totalitarianism in the 20th century, in general, and communist China and Chairman Mao, in particular. Get this book and read it!The reviewer Dr. Miguel Faria is a retired Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, medical historian, and an Associate Editor in Chief and World Affairs Editor of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He is the author of Cuba in Revolution — Escape From a Lost Paradise (2002), and numerous articles on political history, including “Stalin’s Mysterious Death” (2011); “The Political Spectrum — From the Extreme Right and Anarchism to the Extreme Left and Communism” (2011); etc., all posted at his website.

⭐Found this book to provide a great insight into a terrible period in Chinese history and the man who was responsible for the death and despair of so many.

⭐This is an important book, and although it has some flaws, it is a book that everyone interested in the history of the Twentieth Century or in the variety of human experience or in the nature of tyrannical minds should read.Several books in recent years have revealed some details of the horrors of China’s Modern Dark Age, the period under Mao, notably including Jung Chang’s own book on the Cultural Revolution, Wild Swans. But nothing can quite prepare the reader for the story Chang and Halliday tell here.Mao apparently lacked even the slightest impulse of conscience or ethics, and one comes away from this book thinking even the murderous tyrant Hitler had overtones of boy-scout values by comparison. Apart from the sheer toll of Mao’s ruthless and often idiotic decisions – estimated at 70 million souls – there are individual stories here that simply leave one gasping.Were even half of what is reported accurate, one must conclude Mao was a sadistic psychopath. He cared almost nothing for wives, lovers, children, colleagues, the people of China, or even the secular religious idealism of communism. He didn’t care for most Chinese culture or history, although he was a man who spent a lot of time reading. He enjoyed watching private films of rivals being tortured or killed. He wasted vast amounts in a poor country on protecting himself and trying to gain super-power status.Mao was utterly about Mao achieving control over the lives of others, and he valued anyone not a minute longer than he or she was useful to that end or until Mao’s paranoid fear and jealousy over potential rivals were aroused.The first part of this book is less well written and less gripping than the second part, starting at the end of World War II. Flaws, especially in the first part, include things like repetition of points, sometimes as many as three times; an annoying habit of highlighting a key phrases of a document in italics and yet adding the bracketed information that the emphasis is the author’s; and some awkward phrasing. Also, this is not a complete biography of Mao, dealing as it does largely with his public life.The authors are relentlessly negative about Mao, not a good approach to biography. Even so great a tyrant as Mao surely had achievements and qualities that should be included and analyzed.Still, this is a valuable book. Because archival material on Mao’s rule is still not available from China – after all, Mao’s portrait graces every denomination of the national currency, the yuan, and his body lies pickled in his Beijing tomb the same way Lenin’s does in Moscow – the authors were able to secure a huge wealth of material from Russian archives. A remarkable number of documents and copies of documents concerning Mao are preserved in Russia. The authors also interviewed figures who survived Mao’s Terror.The second portion of the book also gains force from specific stories of certain people who dealt much to their regret with the Great Helmsman. What a gruesome story it is when Chou En-lai (who is viewed here as a brilliant, ruthless, and murderous servant rather than a sensitive man trapped in a madhouse) is diagnosed early with cancer. Mao, who had to approve special medical treatment for high officials, refused permission for an operation. Only when it was too late did Mao relent. And this was Mao’s treatment of an extraordinarily talented man who had given him years of exhausting, faithful service!Another harrowing story is Mao’s treatment of Liu Shao-ch’i and especially his remarkable wife, Wang Guangmei, one of the few authentic heroes in the book, who was selected for torture and imprisonment only because she and Liu Shao-ch’i were such a loving couple.Mao’s betrayal of Luo Ruiqing (known as Luo the Tall) is breathtaking. Luo served him slavishly, and Mao valued his unquestioning, prompt carrying out of idiotic orders. Yet when Mao was planning the Cultural Revolution (actually a cover for launching a huge purge and vengeance against figures like Liu Shao-ch’i), he badly needed Lin Biao’s cooperation, and Lin hated Luo as a rival. So, after a brief reluctance, Mao threw Luo to the wolves to secure Lin’s support.A number of times, Mao saw to it that certain Red Army forces were slaughtered by Nationalists only because it served his interest in defeating a rival for power.In an early missile test, Mao insisted that a then-undependable Chinese missile carrying a live atomic warhead be tested on a target across 800 kilometers of China containing many towns and villages. The test succeeded, but the same missile, minus the warhead, failed and crashed in subsequent tests.The Great Leap Forward, which is widely known to have been a terrible failure, here takes on the added dimension of an entire nation being reduced to near-starvation in order to have something to export to the Russians in exchange for military technology. Other officials were reduced to tears on seeing the miserable hardships and death induced by the Great Leap, but no words even slightly moved Mao who cared not a whit that millions died slowly and miserably. Indeed, saying the least wrong word about the Great Leap was a sure ticket to expulsion, torture, and execution.Go read a light comedy after you finish this book.

⭐100 pages in and I’m considering giving up. Extremely bias for a biography. If he was clever or cunning I wana know, the author doesnt concede a single thing to his character. It’s as if his rise to the dictatorship was down to blind luck. I just wanted an honest account. Give me the facts not your bias conclusions, some of which seem like huge leaps.

⭐I read this book 5 years back when I was catching up on as many Chinese authors as I could before planning to work there. It was very valuable for my experiences there and the discussions that I had with locals. Such is the power of the state that you still have to be careful about expressing political opinions and who with. There were some people that I really wished I could have handed a copy to read, but that would quite possibly have got them into trouble as the book and author are still banned there. As Britain and the USA are now seemingly pulling themselves apart politically the lessons in this book are there for all to see. Never follow ideologues and demagogues is the main one for me, as people fall for the racist, far-right rhetoric of Trump/Farage/Johnson/Bannon et al and the other spin-offs that are energised by their divisive attacks. The cruelty of Mao in the way he treated even his closest followers like Chou En-Lai resonated, bringing that nastiness that some leaders seem to enjoy. Jung Chang and Chin Ning Chu have the most influence on my reading these days, along with many others. I like to compare these Chinese or Chinese exiles since China became more open to the authors of influence from the new world in the last century. I hope they keep coming.

⭐I bought this as I didn’t know a great deal about Mao.I have to admit that it sat in my history to-read pile for over a year, as I thought 650 pages (excluding notes, bibliography etc) on collectivised farms etc wouldn’t be the most scintillating read ever.I couldn’t have been more wrong. I found it fascinating from start to finish, and ended up quoting to my wife examples of the terrible depths to which Mao stooped to grab and maintain power, consigning tens of millions of his countrymen to death and misery in the process, without a shred of compassion or regret on his part. (My wife seemed suitably shocked, incidentally, but may have just been humouring me!)I have read hundreds of history books over the years, but – despite my expectations – this is one of my absolute favourites. Highly commended for it’s style and it’s readability.

⭐Other reviewers have described this book as biased. That is the understatement of the decade. This is a scurrilous, opinionated, subjective utter load of tripe. I am not commenting about maos life. No question he did lots of things that led to millions of people‘s death. However, any good biographer will balance out the good with the bad. There is no such thing as a human being Who is absolutely totally irretrievably without any positive whatsoever. The author of this book obviously is vindictive and has an axe to grind. If you want proper history well researched please please please do not read this book. Read Philip Stone now the man who made China. That is a balance warts and all biography.

⭐A story about one man who never gave a thought to anybody else except himself. And the Russian manipulation of pulling the strings of this man to encompass the Chinese continent in Communism. The book is written straightforwardly for those interested in Chinese history in the 20th Century, and needs concentration with many names to remember. It also tells of the thousands upon thousands of the population that were wiped out for Mao to achieve his goal, to rule China, by torture, terror and intrigue. A brilliant book. A story that needs to be told worldwide.

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