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New Light on Mao: His View of the World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

John Gittings
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Extract

As much as one-quarter of the contents of the two Wan-sui volumes deals with matters relating either to the theory or the practice of foreign policy. Very little material of this kind had emerged in the earlier “unofficial” collections of Mao's speeches and writings which came to our knowledge after the Cultural Revolution, and this latest acquisition breaks entirely new ground. As far as the “official” record is concerned, we have until now known more of Mao's views on international affairs before 1949 than after the Liberation. During the 1950s there were a few formal statements on Sino-Soviet relations – telegrams, greetings and the like which required very close analysis to reveal the complex web of tensions beneath the surface. There were some brief and fairly stereotyped descriptions of the international scene in Mao's published speeches to Party and Government conferences. The second decade of the People's Republic was served rather better in the “official” record, but only if one regarded the major documents in the Sino-Soviet polemic as either written by Mao or expressing his views. There were some well-publicized reports of Mao's various meetings with Third World visitors in the 1960s though the level of conversation with, in the main, overawed and deferential amateurs clearly never taxed Mao's intellect. One could perhaps have pieced together the scraps of documentary evidence to construct the bare bones of Mao's outlook on the world, but it would have lacked all the flesh and substance now imparted to it by the Wan-sui documents.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 60 , December 1974 , pp. 750 - 766
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1974

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References

1. Parts of this article are based on my book, The World and China, 1922–72 (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974)Google Scholar; Chs. XI and XII, where the contents of the Wansui volumes relating to foreign affairs are discussed in greater detail. It also contains a checklist of major foreign policy documents and statements, both in the “official” record and from the Wan-sui volumes.

2. In particular, part of Mao's “summing-up” at a conference of Party secretaries in January 1957, Wan-sui (1969), pp. 82–84; parts of his second talk to the Eighth Party Congress Second Session, 17 May 1958, ibid. pp. 196–98 and 207–209; his “Eight Points” on the international situation at the Supreme State Conference, 5 September 1958, ibid. pp. 231–37.

3. For a talk given by Mao on Stalin's essay in November 1958, see Wan-sui (1969), pp. 247–51; for undated notes on the same, Wan-sui (1967), pp. 156–66. Comments on the Soviet textbook on political economy are in Wan-sui (1969), pp. 319–99, and Wan-sui (1967), pp. 167–247. The 1969 text, which dates Mao's critique to 1961–62, seems slightly more reliable. Mao was commenting on the third edition of this textbook, published in 1955.

4. Mao's remarks to the JSP delegation on the territorial issue with the Soviet Union – “The places occupied by the Soviet Union are too numerous” – are even more specific in the original text, Wan-sui (1969), pp. 540–41. Compare the version in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 33–37Google Scholar; The inter-view with Malraux is about half the length of Malraux's own account, and the sequence of discussion is different in several places, Wan-sui (1969), pp. 616–24. For Mao's “On the anti-China question,” 22 March 1960, see Wan-sui (1969), pp. 316–19.

5. From a talk to the enlarged Politburo conference on 20 March 1966, Wan-sui (1969), p. 634.

6. 18 January 1961, Wan-sui (1967), p. 259. In the documents relating to 1958–59 which comprise the bulk of this volume, one also notes the lack of discussion of the vital defence issues of the time – the Soviet negotiations and the decision to launch China's own nuclear programme.

7. Comments on the Soviet textbook, Wan-sui (1969), p. 397.

8. Ibid.

9. “Summing-up” to the Supreme State Conference, 2 March 1957, Wan-sui (1969), p. 99; see also a talk on 13 October 1957, ibid. p. 130.

10. “Summing-up,” September 1955, Wan-sui (1969), pp. 14–15.

11. Talk on question of intellectuals, 20 January 1956, ibid. p. 33.

12. “Summing-up,” January 1957, ibid. pp. 82–83.

13. “Eight Points,” 5 September 1958, ibid. p. 233.

14. 30 November 1958, ibid. p. 254. Mao asserts here that during Khrushchev's visit to China at the end of July neither Taiwan nor the projected Four Power Conference on the Middle East was discussed. But an avoidance of these critical issues must itself be construed as a sign of disagreement over them.

15. The development of Mao's post-war view of the international scene (which I regard as vital for our understanding of all subsequent Chinese foreign policy) is discussed at length in Ch. 7 of my book, The World and China, 1922–72.

16. Talk to Supreme State Conference, 8 September 1958, Wan-sui (1969), p. 239.

17. Talk with Zanzibari expert, 18 June 1964, ibid. pp. 514–15.

18. “Summing-up,” January 1957, ibid. pp. 82–83.

19. “Eight Points,” 5 September, and concluding speech of 9 September 1958, Wan-sui (1969), pp. 235 and 245.

20. Interview with Chilean journalists, 23 June 1964, ibid. p. 524.

21. January 1965 directive, ibid. p. 605.

22. Talk of 12 December 1958, ibid. p. 256.

23. Second Session, 17 May 1958, ibid, pp 207–8.

24. Speech to Chengtu Conference, 10 March 1958, ibid. pp. 163–64.

25. “Mao Tse-tung: a self portrait,” The China Quarterly, No. 57 (1974), p. 164Google Scholar.

26. Circumstantial evidence of Sino-Soviet friction in the early 1950s, over the ideological definition of Mao's revolutionary road, over the Korean War and Soviet aid to the Chinese, over the first Offshore Islands incident, etc. is discussed in Chs. 9 and 10 of my book, The World and China, 1922–72.

27. Mao recalled “learning from the Soviet Union” in a speech of 8 December 1956, Wan-sui (1969), p. 66.

28. “Summing-up” at a meeting of Party secretaries, January 1957, ibid. pp. 83–85.

29. Ibid.

30. Speech to Chengtu Conference, ibid. pp. 162–64.

31. Talk of November 1958 on Stalin's essay, Wan-sui (1969), p. 248.

32. Notes on Soviet textbook, ch. 3, Wan-sui (1969), p. 321.

33. Ibid. pp. 322–23; supplementary Ch. 6, ibid. p. 397.

34. Wan-sui (1969), p. 27. Another comparison favouring China is implied throughout Mao's critique of Stalin's agricultural policies, and is spelt out in the fourth supplementary chapter of his notes on the Soviet textbook on political economy. The Chinese, Mao argued, have had more experience in the countryside, and when they moved to the co-operative stage were able to avoid a loss of production, etc.

35. 8 December 1956, ibid. p. 66.

36. “Summing-up,” January 1957, ibid. p. 84.

37. 11 May 1964, ibid. p. 496. The quotation has been officially published, without the reference to De Gaulle which, together with other remarks in the Wan-sui documents, shows a much more critical view than the one expressed publicly for reasons of state (that is, to encourage Gaullist independence from the U.S.): see “Leninism or social imperialism?” Peking Review, No. 17, 24 04 1970Google ScholarPubMed.

38. Remarks at a briefing, March 1964, ibid. pp. 471–72.

39. “On the anti-China question,” March 1960, ibid. pp. 318–19.