The Minutes of Chairman Mao’s Meeting with the Friendly Man Snow (hereinafter referred to as the Minutes), issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee on June 1, 1971, should be one of the most important documents for the study of China’s New Democratic Revolution, the Socialist Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, and Mao Zedong himself. The Summary was printed in 40,000 copies in its day, and many copies should have survived. It will help people clarify misinterpretations and misinterpretations of some major events and issues of the Chinese Revolution.
From the Minutes, one can also see what kind of a person Mao was. The only important task in Mao’s Life was to “seize power” and “keep power” until the end of his life.
First, he did not care how many people died to seize power, as long as he could win. When the Chinese people were killed, it was good for him to seize power, so he shouted. When he talked with Snow about the fact that there were only 20,000 soldiers based in Poan, he exclaimed, “Who would have thought that people could take over the mainland?” , “Then The Japanese came again …… those Japanese are really good, the Chinese revolution can’t work without the help of the Japanese.” In the Minutes it is shown that Mao Zedong had said the same thing on different occasions, and he was obviously quite pleased with this view of his. How much Chinese blood was spilled and how many people were displaced by the Japanese invasion of China. It is estimated that 20 million Chinese died as a direct result of the war.
In addition to thanking the Japanese, he also thanked Chiang Kai-shek: “It was Chiang Kai-shek who helped at the back, and he killed people in 1927.” People know that Chiang Kai-shek purged the party and killed people in 1927, and tried to kill off the Communists. Mao Zedong, on the other hand, applauded the killing of his own cohorts. Ordinary people simply cannot understand the extraordinary thinking of a great leader, because the human heart is flesh and blood. Probably, only those who “are happy even as ghosts” and willingly serve as cannon fodder for the leader can truly and sincerely understand their great man.
The Chronicle also contains evidence of Mao’s cold-bloodedness toward the lives of the people. For example, in order to get the rebels to help him seize power, he supported armed struggle. Mao’s original words were: “There are two things in this Cultural Revolution that I strongly disapprove of. One is to speak falsehoods, to say, ‘Let’s have a cultural struggle, not a martial struggle,’ but in fact to kick people below, and then take back their feet. People say, “Why did you kick me? And he said, “I didn’t kick you, look, my foot is here. Telling lies. Then it developed into a war, starting with spears, and later with rifles and mortars. Well, I’m in favor of you doing this.” The second thing I’m not happy about is the capture of prisoners and their mistreatment.” One can see that Chairman Mao is not happy with the armed struggle is not admitted, telling lies, and mistreatment of prisoners. And with spears, guns and cannons really martial combat, his old man was full of joy watching the play. He did not care how many revolutionary generals and innocent people lost their lives for this. The only thing he cares about is who has the power.
Secondly, those who obstructed his seizure of power or posed a threat to his vested power were to be killed. When Snow asked, “When did it become obvious to you that you had to get rid of this man Liu Shaoqi from politics?” Chairman Mao replied, “That was long ago, in January 1965, when the 23 articles were published, the first of which said that the goal of the Four Clean-ups was to eliminate those in power in the Party who had taken the capitalist road, and Liu Shaoqi opposed it on the spot.” Chairman Mao also said, “At that Time, I could not control the power of the Party, the power of propaganda work, the power of the Party in each province, the power of each place, such as the power of the Beijing Municipal Committee. So at that time I said there was no such thing as personal worship, but rather a little personal worship was needed.” Here, Mao said that he could not control the power of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and what he wanted was for the power to be in his personal hands. Obviously, he was chasing to satisfy his personal desire to possess power in order to achieve the pleasure he gets from imposing his personal utopian ideal on the Chinese public to satisfy his personal ideal. For this pleasure, he will do anything and everything, and he will let those who stand in his way die if he thinks they are in his way. For this pleasure and to clear the way, he must hold absolute power. Therefore, his seizure of power was entirely to satisfy his personal selfish desires, and not for the sake of the toiling masses, as people originally believed him to be, and to be impartial and selfless. Previously, he was a man of his word, and the Beijing Municipal Committee was obedient. Now that he was ignored, he was extremely frustrated; he thought that power had fallen by the wayside, and he had to take absolute control of the situation. It was the faction in power like Liu Shaoqi that spoiled his pleasure. Such a roadblock like Liu Shaoqi had to be removed, and the best excuse was to refer to it as “the faction in power that has taken the capitalist road”.
From what Mao said earlier, one can also clarify in passing a long-rumored statement – Chairman Mao does not approve of the cult of the individual. Let’s see what he said. He said that he could not control the power of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and he needed a little cult of personality at that time. He went on to say to Snow: “In the past few years there was a need for a little cult of the individual. Now it’s not necessary, it’s going to cool down.” Obviously, Mao needed a cult, and it was he himself who deliberately wanted a cult of the individual. Mao has been engaged in personal worship for a long time, some people think it started from the Yan’an Rectification, while some scholars think Mao has been engaged in personal worship since the Jinggang Mountain period. But what is certain is that, from the 1959 Lushan meeting, which is familiar to all Chinese people, Peng Dehuai was only displeased with the Great Leap Forward and embarrassed Mao once, and then was purged without a fight. See such a high merit of the people were repaired like this, the whole party has been silent since then, all know that Mao ruthless, from then on no longer listen to different views with Mao. Mao used the atmosphere of terror to establish the heavy rain power. Those who are aware of the times began to understand that touting Mao is the safest, and can also get political benefits. So the worship of Chairman Mao gradually pushed to the climax, until the great teacher, great leader, great commander-in-chief, great helmsman and other slogans appeared.
And at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the reason why Mao Zedong wanted to start a personal worship movement was obviously that he wanted to show his power to his political opponents through his admirers, to demonstrate to them and to build up momentum for his power grab. So, between August and November 1966, he paraded the Red Guards at Tiananmen Gate eight times, with a total of over 10 million people. His purpose was to imply to his political opponents that with so many people following me fanatically, you should not touch me, just move a hair on my head and you will be swallowed up by these crazy waves of people and will die without a burial place. Looking at this scene, those who were discontented with Chairman Mao were all scared and had no choice but to follow and shout “Long live Chairman Mao”.
Of course, since Liu Shaoqi had been killed in Kaifeng in 1968, Mao felt safe for the time being. So he thought that the cult of the individual was going to cool down. However, it was only cooling down, he did not reject the need for personal worship, he still had to maintain a certain amount of personal worship to deter those potential political opponents, but only to restrain a little, in the future when it is necessary to take out. Moreover, Mao actually enjoyed the happiness brought to him by the cult of the individual. That’s why he criticized Snow, “There must be someone to worship! You Snow no one worship you, you are happy?” How can you get along without a group of people worshipping each governor, each president and each minister in the United States?” There is no doubt that Mao not only enjoyed the cult of the individual, but also wanted to turn it into a tool for his power grab. It is not historically accurate to say that he did not approve of the cult of the individual.
Mao concluded by saying to Snow, “I tell no lies to you.” The main heading of the Minutes in red states: Reviewed by the Chairman. Mao Zedong does not tell lies here, so in the Minutes, Mao is the real Mao Zedong. Four strong feelings emerge from this history.
First, when supreme power cannot be openly and transparently competed to make it change peacefully, but rather to seize power by secret fighting, the process is often violent and bloody, with a tragic ending. Neither Peng Dehuai nor Liu Shaoqi had the opportunity to express their different political views or arguments to the national public so that they could be fairly questioned and chosen by the public. At Mao’s command, they were either thrown into the cold or lost their lives. This kind of power struggle is inherited from the Chinese court struggle, which has been accompanied by fratricide between brothers, mothers and sons, with the public suffering as a result. The technique of this struggle requires a single move to defeat the enemy, never giving the opponent any opportunity to be merciful, but instead to get himself killed. Mao Zedong used this technique skillfully, so he won, but the whole Chinese people suffered with him.
Second, when power is highly centralized, it gets out of control. Mao Zedong can be best described as a lawless man. After the founding of the country, he had one hand on the sky and no one could control it. Mao Zedong’s hand was the cloud and his hand was the rain, and the state power and the violent machine became his personal property, and he could use it to fix whoever he wanted. In the Minutes, even the amendments to the Constitution were first set by Mao. With a single word and a wave of his hand, the whole China was driven into a frenzy by him, and brought China to the brink of collapse. However, because he was the “supreme being”, the Chinese people did not have to bear any responsibility for his faults, but the consequences of his irreversible political, economic and cultural devastation were borne by generations of Chinese people. Until this situation is changed, a high degree of centralized power will remain the fundamental source of chaos in Chinese society. The only way to completely change it is to have a horizontal separation of powers, so that they can check and balance each other.
Third, when “personal worship” only has the right to worship, but not the freedom to oppose, personal worship can easily be held hostage by power. In the Mao era, people can only show their loyalty to the chairman, not a little disrespect, otherwise they will incur the disaster of death. Some people are sincere worship of Mao Zedong, they take the initiative to defend Mao’s authority, and fight against those they believe to be opposed to Mao, while Mao Zedong uses the absolute power in his hands to hold this worship hostage as his own capital and tool to seize power. When the cult has no value or puts itself at a disadvantage, he will relentlessly discard and even crack down. This is evidenced by the fact that after the climax of the Red Guard, the Red Guard leaders were arrested and put in jail.
Fourth, when the mind is extremely authoritarian, life is extremely indifferent. When one reads this Chronicle, the strongest stimulus caused to one is: Mao was too cold-blooded! But when looking back at the post-1949 history, it becomes clear that this is an extremely complex issue, and perhaps not all sins can be blamed on Mao; there are many things that aided and abetted the evil.
For these, some blame it on the overall apathy of the Chinese people and their servility to Mao. Indeed, whether it was the Three Anti’s, the Five Anti’s, the crackdown or the Anti-Rightist, a great number of lives were lost in the Chinese people’s mutual struggle, and not only did no one repent for this, but some even thought that these people deserved to die. Not only did no one repent for this, but some even thought that these people deserved to die. Nor did many people feel distressed about the tens of millions of lives that died in the so-called three years of natural disasters at that time. Not only Mao Zedong, but also the Chinese people as a whole were extremely indifferent to life. So some people say that it is the indifference of the Chinese people as a whole that is causing the massive unnatural deaths of Chinese people to spread everywhere and cannot be controlled.
How could Mao Zedong cause such a large number of unnatural deaths during his rule and still remain in high office until he was able to start the Cultural Revolution? Without the deification of Mao Zedong by the entire Chinese people, who worshiped, touted and condoned him, would he have been able to make such a big wave? So, some say it was the Chinese people’s slavishness to Mao that contributed to the massive damage Mao did to the Chinese people. So many people died, and still no one could wake up.
In fact, it cannot be denied that the above-mentioned factors caused extensive harm to the Chinese, but it cannot be so simply blamed. At that time, if a Chinese person dared to say that he did not worship Mao Zedong, he would soon not even have a life. Even today, when people are faced with such a situation, not many people would be willing to hit the stone with an egg, not to mention the fact that the dictatorship was so tight back then.
Others blame all this harm on Marxism-Leninism, the doctrine that advocates a violent dictatorship and makes Chinese people indifferent to life and full of violence. Indeed, those who were defeated were considered counter-revolutionaries or bad elements who betrayed Marxism and socialism. Without the banner of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong could not have danced the Chinese. But this cannot be blamed entirely on Marxism-Leninism. It is known that after 1949, all works of thought were banned to the general public, except for the books of Mao and Marxism-Leninism, which were published as theoretical works. The Chinese could no longer see any other ideas except Marxism-Leninism and the slow Maoist writings. All that is spoken and seen every day is only Marxism-Leninism-Mao, so only Marxism-Leninism-Mao can be believed. In addition, disobedience to Marxism-Leninism-Mao would be violently suppressed, and even their lives would be wiped out, so it was difficult for the Chinese to disobey. Chinese people have been hijacked and forced to believe in Marxism-Leninism-Mao, and have suffered from Stockholm syndrome since then.
In the final analysis, the crime is that the Chinese people’s thinking is extremely authoritarian. Under this extreme dictatorship, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism became the only religion allowed to be believed in, and those who disobeyed were mercilessly suppressed and suppressed, and those who disobeyed would not be able to survive. Since then, Chinese people no longer think, as long as they can survive, the result is the creation of group unconsciousness, Chinese people have become a lower class of animals who do whatever others tell them to do.
When the mind is stagnant and depleted to the point of knowing only blind obedience, people are left with only bestiality. This is the reason why Chinese people so cold-bloodedly condone and follow Mao’s evil deeds.
Of course, while blaming the authoritarian system, there is no denying that the Chinese should repent for the lives lost through political infighting after 1949. By simply placing the blame on the authoritarian system, the Chinese can feel comfortable not having to reflect on it. Mao and Marxism-Leninism were able to come to power because many people took the initiative to promote them, and were not completely hijacked; before that the Chinese still had other options. One could say that Mao and Marxism-Leninism were chosen by the Chinese themselves, and that the Chinese must bear the consequences of their chosen path. In particular, those who took the initiative to mutilate the lives of others in the various movements after the founding of the country should repent and apologize. Although these people have the freedom not to repent, such repentance would be a return from bestiality to humanity and a harmonious path that would lead to less violence and a return from evil to goodness in China.
(Note: Stockholm syndrome: also known as Stockholm syndrome or hostage complex or hostage syndrome, refers to a complex in which the victim of a crime becomes emotionally attached to the perpetrator and even helps the perpetrator in turn. This emotion causes the victim to become attached to the perpetrator, dependent on the perpetrator, and even assist the perpetrator. The conditions for Stockholm syndrome are: 1) the hostage must have a genuine feeling that the kidnapper threatens his or her survival; 2) during the hostage situation, the hostage must recognize that the kidnapper may make small favors; 3) the hostage must be isolated from all other views except the single view of the kidnapper and usually has no access to information from the outside world; 4) the hostage must believe that escape is not possible. .
The origin of Stockholm Syndrome: On August 23, 1973, two criminals held four bank employees hostage after a failed attempt to rob one of the largest banks in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, which ended when the criminals gave up after a 130-hour standoff between the police and the criminals. However, months after the incident, the four bank employees, who were held hostage, still showed compassion for their captors, refusing to charge them in court and even raising funds for their legal defense, all of whom showed that they did not hate the robbers and expressed their gratitude for the fact that they did not harm them but took care of them, and adopted a hostile attitude toward the police. What’s more, one of the hostages, a female employee, even fell in love with the robber and became engaged to him while serving her sentence. Later studies revealed that the incident, which researchers call “Stockholm Syndrome,” was surprisingly common. Researchers have found examples of this syndrome in a variety of experiences, from concentration camp inmates, prisoners of war, battered women and victims of incest, all of whom may have experienced Stockholm Syndrome.
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