The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Tai Hung-Chao (PDF)

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“The most revealing book ever published on Mao, perhaps on any dictator in history.”—Professor Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia UniversityFrom 1954 until Mao Zedong’s death twenty-two years later, Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler’s personal physician, which put him in daily—and increasingly intimate—contact with Mao and his inner circle. in The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Dr. Li vividly reconstructs his extraordinary experience at the center of Mao’s decadent imperial court.Dr. Li clarifies numerous long-standing puzzles, such as the true nature of Mao’s feelings toward the United States and the Soviet Union. He describes Mao’s deliberate rudeness toward Khrushchev and reveals the actual catalyst of Nixon’s historic visit. Here are also surprising details of Mao’s personal depravity (we see him dependent on barbiturates and refusing to wash, dress, or brush his teeth) and the sexual politics of his court. To millions of Chinese, Mao was more god than man, but for Dr. Li, he was all too human. Dr. Li’s intimate account of this lecherous, paranoid tyrant, callously indifferent to the suffering of his people, will forever alter our view of Chairman Mao and of China under his rule.Praise for The Private Life of Chairman Mao“From now one no one will be able to pretend to understand Chairman Mao’s place in history without reference to this revealing account.”—Professor Lucian Pye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology“Dr. Li does for Mao what the physician Lord Moran’s memoir did for Winston Churchill—turns him into a human being. Here is Mao unveiled: eccentric, demanding, suspicious, unregretful, lascivious, and unfailingly fascinating. Our view of Mao will never be the same again.”—Ross Terrill, author of China in Our Time“An extraordinarily intimate portrait of Mao. [Dr. Li] portrays [Mao’s imperial court] as a place of boundless decadence, licentiousness, selfishness, relentless toadying and cutthroat political intrigue.”—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times“One of the most provocative books on Mao to appear since the publication of Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China.”—Paul G. Pickowicz, The Wall Street Journal

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This book was written by Mao’s private doctor (published in 1994 before Li’s death in 1995). It’s about his experiences with one of the most important figures in modern world history. All readers must question if it is accurate or unbiased. I did as well, but my answer is I just don’t know. However, Li was certainly Mao’s doctor during the years presented (1954-1976), and on a high level of the Zhongnanhai inner circle. The photos, as well as his intimate experiences, convey little doubt (at least to me) of his close access to Mao. Whatever Li’s personal or political motives were to write this book are beyond my ability to discern.Born in Beijing 1919, Dr. Li was with Mao for over 22 years. They shared meals and details of their personal lives. It’s probably one of the closest pictures of the Chairman you can get without having been there yourself. Undoubtedly there are other accounts written in Chinese I cannot access. For anecdotes about Mao, conversations, travel accommodations, sexual habits and hygiene, addictions to cigarettes and sleeping pills, it is a convincing primary source. Mao was a rebel, and Li was a true believer from initial employment with Mao until his gradual disillusionment. Li trained in Australia and later emigrated to the USA.Although Mao espoused Chinese traditional medicine, he chose western trained doctors for his personal care. Li produced a clear portrait of his former employer from a few years after Mao’s ascension until his death. If you are interested in Mao as a man, you cannot forego reading this. It is exciting as well as terrifying. From Mao’s disastrous economic Great Leap Forward in agriculture and industry (’58-62) to his manipulation of fourth wife Jiang Qing to attack foes during the Cultural Revolution (’66-76), this is strong material. You will also learn how Mao liked his food cooked (spicy, Hunan style – mm mm good).So why did Li write this book? It is said that Mao’s wife Jiang accused Li of poisoning her in 1968, a scary predicament. It is known Li left for the USA shortly after Mao died in 1979. He helped to preserve Mao’s body, which is still displayed in a mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. Li was an early convert to communism, but later changed his mind based on the events around him. He came to be frightened by his proximity to Mao’s absolute power and ruthlessness, and burned his notebooks during the later years. It’s an important account that will continue to be referenced by authors in the future, as it has been in the past.

⭐Dr. Li Zhisui was Mao Zedong’s personal physician for the last twenty-two years of the Chairman’s life. The subject of his recollection is not the vigorous, charismatic visionary of The Long March, but an unappetizing codger who refuses to bathe, except in the vaginal fluids of females. Mao apparently subscribed to a Daoist belief that having sex with a succession of young women would increase his longevity. And he did, nightly, in apartments blocked from public view by the walls of the Forbidden City. His conquests gave him a sense of immortality; he, in turn, gave them venereal disease. The Great Helmsman, Dr. Li concludes, “lived an appalling private life.”Mao, Li asserts, did not have the intellectual equipment to lead China into the modern world. While cunning, he possessed the mind of a peasant rooted in the Nineteenth Century. When his naïve economic theories caused mass starvation, his response was periodic depression during which he would take to bed, rethink his position and come back refreshed — though not necessarily with better ideas. Mao seems to have ruled with a Yoda-like vagueness. Like FDR, whom he admired, he never worried about contradicting himself. While publicly reviling capitalist roaders, he was nonetheless charmed by President Richard Nixon whose right-wing bluntness he preferred to Leftist waffling.Li saves some of his most scathing criticism for Madame Mao, Jiang Qing, whose behavior he describes as “nearly psychotic.” A woman of ravenous ambition with no constructive outlet, she exerted her will through hypochondria and hysteria, alternatively manipulating and terrorizing Mao’s domestic staff. (She demanded her husband’s bodyguards iron her silk underwear.) Li’s name was linked with hers romantically for a time, but he managed to persuade the Chairman that the rumor was baseless. During her destructive political ascent, Li attests, Jiang made arrangements to extend her own longevity with transfusions of blood from healthy young males. She tried, without success, to have the doctor purged; he finally succeeded, plotting with others, to have her arrested.On balance, Li presents himself as a patriot disillusioned by the Communist revolution and bitter since catering to Mao ultimately thwarted his dreams of practicing neurosurgery. (He expatriated to the U.S. in 1988.) The reader has to accept this at face value since, it seems, all traces of Li’s name and service have been wiped out of the official record in Beijing. (He restores it in part with photos of his own taken with Mao and his inner circle.) I also found myself wondering about the passages of dialogue that would seem impossible to recreate without benefit of a tape recorder. Dr. Li kept detailed notes, forty volumes of them, which he burned in 1966 for fear of discovery. Ten years later, he proceeded to reconstruct them. But is anyone’s memory that reliable? And what of medical confidentiality? Is that a concept unknown in China, or are all bets off if your patient was a head of state? The fact is, we all love tell-alls and in this instance, the teller sheds light on this convulsive chapter in Chinese history. The cast of characters is so large that only a Sinologist could fully appreciate their significance, but for the rest of us, The Private Life of Chairman Mao is a lively and engrossing read.

⭐I had heard about this book from a few different sources and decided to purchase the book and yet waited some years before actually getting around to reading the book. Phenomenal.As is been said by others, there are few examples of other books with so intimately a portrait of an infamous dictator in history.This book, written by Mao Tse Tung’s personal physician, is well-written (clearly translated though the doctor was Western educated) and describes events known and unknown about Mao and China during his years of service.The book is chilling and yet believable, and given the author had nothing to really gain from being truthful, the portrait here is both one of being impressed and slowly horrified as the man and his megalomania comes into full view.Millions die due to famine and horrific policies and Mao does not register concern. Intimates in his coterie come and go, or are used but Mao discards them. China must succeed, yet it costs so many their lives, or causes incredible misery, so how does one balance the good with the absolute evil and horrors brought upon innocent people. With this portrait of the man, who apparently had no compassion for his subjects, and no legal authority, the history becomes so shocking. He did not care. Broken eggs for the omelet apparently.This account is fascinating. It bears truth because of so much we know since we shall know the man by the fruits he bears, and much of the fruit produced by Mao was certainly tainted. Well worth reading. Recommended.

⭐This book is a major historical testament, giving a lively eye-witness view of the grimly mesmerising court of Chairman Mao, told by his personal physician. Equally, Dr Li’s book is an account of how he managed to survive in the terrifying cauldron of Mao’s inner circle for 22 years, remaining sane and reasonably balanced while using all his considerable intelligence to avoid countless political pitfalls – but not all of them.For the non-specialist, the book could be shorter, cutting out much detail about the bureaucracy and medical twists and turns. Dr Li’s memoirs are not a work of historical analysis, though he does cover all of the main events. It’s value is as the personal testimony of an acute observer, whose direct involvement and frequent (often daily) personal contact with Mao over more than two decades gives his account the ring of authenticity.Chairman Mao emerges as a ruthless and far-sighted manipulator of people and ultimately his entire nation, using fear and strategic shifts (including the turn to the USA in 1972) to unbalance everyone, not least the Communist Party – which was the chief target for the dreadful Cultural Revolution of the 1960s – and the USSR, whose patronising attitude he resented greatly. Mao’s youthful idealism appears to have withered very early, pushed aside by his drive to yield uncontested power, brooking no criticism or other source of authority.According to Li, the sensual Mao was utterly cold, with no personal friends amongst his entourage, his fellow leaders or his women. However, Mao had a pronounced sense of humour and an ability to put people at their ease, though often this was to allow him more easily to observe their character and to probe their weaknesses. Allied to his immense ego was a truly independent mind and a cunning sense of the likely movement in public opinion and of how strategically to turn this to his advantage. Perhaps surprisingly, Dr Li says that Mao privately venerated the USA, both for its technical progress and for the help which America afforded the Communists during World war Two (unlike the USSR). The denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev in his ‘Secret Speech’ in 1956 had a galvanising effect on ‘Chairman’ (as he was called), who saw that his chief enemies would come from within the ranks of the party which he had brought to power.Dr Li describes in astonishing detail the machinations of those in Mao’s personal entourage as well as the unfolding of Mao’s major (and always deadly) initiatives – such as the calamitous ‘Great Leap Forward’ of 1958-1961, which plunged the entire country into famine. 18-45 million died in this profoundly ignorant attempt to overtake Great Britain in 15 years simply by producing more steel and industrial commodities, neglecting agricultural production. Though he pretended to ignore the terrible starvation which this terrible policy led to, Mao was insecure for ever after this, sensing that he had lost the true adulation of the masses and the party hierarchy, despite the fact that outwardly the cult of Mao became more vociferous. This led directly to the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1971, which was ultimately directed against the party ‘intellectuals’ and the other leaders whom the paranoiac Mao saw as the main threats against him, notably Liu Shaoqui and Deng Xiaoping.Time and again Li details Mao’s tactics for keeping everyone in a state of fear. He would first of all stir up a storm of criticism inside his court or amongst the press about some apparently minor issue, which threatened one or other group of mid-level cadres. Often he would use poetic language to imply what he wanted, but never with real clarity, since it was important to conceal his ultimate purpose, which was always to consolidate his own power. Because of the intensely subservient and strong group loyalty of the Chinese people (as portrayed by Li), the threat would ultimately creep up the hierarchy towards one or several of the main leaders of the country. Mao would then retreat from Beijing ‘to allow the snakes [his enemies] to come out of their holes’. The witch hunt would gather pace, with people denouncing others as ‘anti-party’ for fear of themselves being denounced. Mao would then reappear to restore order and be hailed as the saviour, while rounding on suitable scapegoats who would be exiled to hard labour in the provinces or driven to suicide.Mao seems to have trusted Dr Li enormously, since he engaged in private conversations with Li on a weekly basis, ostensibly to learn English (which Li knew well, having worked at one point in Australia). For a period in the early 1950s, Li exercised considerable power himself due to his access to Mao, though he was careful not to use his power in the political arena, despite the urgings of many including Mao. This trust diminished considerably in the Cultural Revolution, since Li failed to denounce colleagues and was insufficiently passionate about the aims of the ‘revolution’, partly because (like everyone else) he was unclear what it was all about and partly because of native caution. The fall from power of Li’s main sponsor and protector, the man who was head of Mao’s personal security, led to a period of great vulnerability for Dr Li. Nevertheless, Li survived because of his medical skills and his non-political stance. Towards the end, there are some riveting descriptions of Politburo meetings debating Mao’s physical condition – astonishing in itself – where medical knowledge is irrelevant and battles about different treatments are determined simply on the basis of factional interest (Li being identified with party interests and therefore different medical opinion was chosen by the ‘Mao above the party’ faction).Indeed, an equal interest in this narrative is how Li comes to terms with the compromises which he had to make in order to survive, without wholly becoming Mao’s creature – at least, according to his own account. He had to ignore many awful things and to tread a very delicate tightrope. For example, he had to humour the intelligent but powerless and petty wife of Mao, Jiang Qing, in treating her frequent medical false alarms. While not offending her, he also had to guard against being drawn too deeply into her schemes. Jiang was transformed by the Cultural Revolution, when Mao gave her real power, using her as a proxy power base against his perceived enemies. Chapters 66-67 and others contain electric stories from Li’s personal involvement in the shameful and bitter infighting which permeated and corrupted the whole country at this time. Even Dr Li is engulfed, accused by Jiang of being a counter-revolutionary who tried to poison her.The picture emerges not so much of Mao as a mighty emperor (which he was), as a masterful schoolboy, who plots and manoeuvres with great cunning against his fellow play-mates with absolutely no scruple – leading to the dismissal, torture and/or death of many. It takes Dr Li a decade to see that his revered Chairman is interested only in preserving his own power, and that one key element of this is its disguise. The highly intelligent Zhou Enlai appears to have been extremely competent but ultimately completely subservient. Only Deng Xiaoping was able somehow to maintain some independent power, though he too was purged during the Cultural Revolution.A particularly unsavory aspect of Mao is that he fulfilled his sexual appetite by sleeping with thousands of young, worshipful but ignorant Chinese peasant girls during his decades in power. He was a carrier of genital disease, from which he himself did not suffer. When Dr Li once raised this with him, asking him to take a full bath (he never bathed except when he swam) and to undergo a course of treatment, Mao refused, commenting that ‘I wash myself in my women’ and that this was sufficient. Until incapacitated by lung infections, Mao continued to demand the sexual service of fresh young girls on a daily basis, graduating to full orgies with four or five women at the same time.Ultimately, the story is about the survival of Dr Li, not least during the internal battle for power before and after Mao’s death in 1976. The pervading fear of the years of the Cultural Revolution is faintly reminiscent of Primo Levi’s seminal stories of life in the German death camps: both men were forced to use all their cunning to survive in an intensely hostile and closed world in which the potential penalty for getting it wrong is death (although Levi’s experience was of course far more traumatic). At the end of the book Li regrets the loss of his professional career due to his service to Mao, passing over the tens of millions whose lives were twisted or snuffed out while Li ministered to the charmingly poisonous Chairman Mao. Li emerges as perceptive and gentle though vain and lightly self-pitying – but then, how would any of us fare in this scenario? Li’s wife, Lillian, always suspect in Red China because of her landlord father, must have been a remarkable woman, keeping her medical-courtier husband in touch with reality and sustaining a family life despite enormous pressure to negate all personal relationships.It is massively fortunate that Deng Xiaoping emerged wise and relatively humane from this insane and calamitous period of China’s long history, to lead the country from the callous chaos of Mao’s reign to internal peace and prosperity. However, the dark shadow of Maoist brutality and nationalism still hangs over that benighted country – and thus over all of Asia.

⭐This is a really fascinating account by someone who was with Mao for twenty-two years and was with him at nearly all the major events. I was surprised to note that this book predates the major work ‘Mao – The Unknown Story’ by over decade. There can be little doubt that Mao was one of the monsters of the twentieth century – probably the worst. His dealings with Kruschev are very revealing. Still some mystery about the end of Lin Biao, who according to one account was not on the Trident plane crash – but that’s another story.

⭐This is a very engaging book. A fascinating look at one of the world’s most murderous dictators and a very illuminating read. Shows what can happen when there is no one around you to tell you you’re wrong. Also very entertaining – I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended.

⭐The book is great but a bad omission is the photos included in the original hard copy edition. I was very disappointed by this.

⭐I read it with curiosity and interest. Then I read MAO by Jung Chang and never saw his name mentionnend. Anyway, I kept on wondering how he could have survived, as Mao never stopped sending the people close ( and far ) to him to prison, having them banned to far away countryside, purged ..I read now that much of it was fabricated by Li ..

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