The Leader’s Speech on “The Breath of the Rainbow
This article on the Cultural Revolution begins with an incident that occurred before the Cultural Revolution.
In November 1957, Mao Zedong made a shocking statement at a Moscow meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, which caused a strong reaction among the communist “fraternal parties” and later became one of the causes of the Sino-Soviet split. According to the text later compiled by the Chinese side, Mao said the following [1].
Now there is another situation to be estimated, that is, the madmen who want to start a war, they may drop atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs everywhere. If they drop them, we drop them too, and this will be a messy fight, and this will cost people. The problem should be considered in the worst base. Our Party’s Politburo has held several meetings and talked about this issue. Now to fight, China has only hand grenades, no atomic bombs, but the Soviet Union has. Imagine how many people would die if war broke out. The world’s 2.7 billion people could lose a third; a little more, maybe half. It’s not that we want to fight, they want to fight, and when they do, they want to drop atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs. I had a debate with a foreign politician about this issue. He thought that if we fought an atomic war, people would die out. I said, “In the extreme, half of the people will die, and half of the people will remain, and after the imperialism is pacified and the world is socialized, in how many years there will be 2.7 billion again, and there must be more. We in China are not yet built up, and we want peace. But if the imperialists insist on a war, we have no choice but to cross our hearts. We will build after the war.
To this day, these words are still highly valued in some of China’s “melodramatic” writings, and are praised as “a speech with a long and spirited message” [2]. Even Shen Zhihua, a contemporary historian who is known for his boldness in speaking the truth, has defended these words. He first examined the minutes of a meeting on the Soviet side at the time, according to which Mao’s original words were [3].
Is it possible to estimate how many people will die as a result of future wars? Perhaps one-third of the world’s population of 2.7 billion will die, which is only 900 million people. I think that’s less than that, if the atomic bomb does fall. Of course, that’s terrible. But even the loss of half the people isn’t that bad. Why? Because it’s not us who have to do it, it’s them, and it’s them who impose the war on us. If we were to go to war, then atomic and hydrogen weapons would be used. I personally think that the whole human society will suffer such a catastrophe, when half, maybe, more than half of humanity will be lost. I asked Jawaharlal Nehru what he thought about this issue. He was in a much more pessimistic mood than I was on this issue. I said to him: If half of humanity is destroyed, there will be half left, but imperialism will be completely destroyed, and only socialism will exist in the whole world, and in half a century or a century the population will grow again, even by more than half. China has not really started building yet, and if the imperialists impose war on us, then we are ready to stop building; let’s test our force first, and then go back to building.
According to Shen Zhihua’s analysis, the texts published by both sides are mainly somewhat different in the second half of the text (referring to the fact that China can fight first and then build), while the first half is more or less the same. It is worth mentioning that he also found from the Chinese archives a speech on this issue given by Mao Zedong at a party meeting again after his return from Moscow, and what Mao said this time was [4].
We have to prepare for the Great War, the imperialists have madmen who throw the atomic bomb. The first great war was but 10 million dead, the second great war was 30 million dead. There is no experience in fighting atomic war. It is better to have half of the population left, the second best remaining one-third, the world’s 2.7 billion people, there are 900 million people, there are 900 million people also good to do, in exchange for an imperialist demise, in exchange for permanent peace. Therefore, the real atomic war is not necessarily a bad thing, but also a bad thing is good.
The “second half” is not covered here, but apparently Mao’s main emphasis is on the first half, and as Shen Zhihua points out, Mao “put it more thoroughly” this time – in the Soviet Union, he In the Soviet Union, he assumed that a nuclear war would kill half of humanity, and at home, he said that two-thirds would die, but that this would lead to the realization of the ideal, so “it doesn’t have to be bad, it’s bad but also good” – specifically, half dead is Specifically, half dead is “the best”, two-thirds dead is “the second best”, of course, if it can “in exchange for the demise of imperialism”.
After the above examination, Shen analyzes that it seems unreasonable that Nikita S. Khrushchev was so offended by this passage, because he himself said something similar: the day after Mao’s speech, Pravda published a transcript of a conversation Khrushchev had with the American journalist Henry Shapiro on November 14. In it, the journalist asked, “Do you think that a part of the world could remain in the event of an atomic or hydrogen war?” Khrushchev replied, “Of course. There would be very heavy losses, humanity would endure many disasters, but people would not disappear from the face of the earth, society would survive and develop.” Shen Zhihua says that this speech of Khrushchev four days before Mao “has exactly the same thrust as the first half of Mao’s speech” [5].
But after reading these words, I am puzzled: Is the “main idea” of Mao and Khrushchev’s speeches “exactly the same”? If we only judge the fact that “nuclear war will not annihilate mankind”, it seems that they are indeed saying the same thing. But in terms of the horror of such a thing, in terms of the value judgment of whether it is a “good thing or a bad thing,” they are not only different, they are simply opposed. Even in Mao’s own case, the same factual judgments would be very different if they were told differently.
It is not difficult to prove this point, we only need to change a few words of Mao’s original words and try to see if the same “reasoning” can be applied to himself and if such “reasoning” can be spoken by others: “Be prepared to deal with The imperialists have madmen who will drop the atomic bomb. ⋯⋯… the best bomb killed Mao Zedong, leaving Liu Shaoqi, the second best Liu Shaoqi also died, leaving Deng Xiaoping, Deng Xiaoping is better to do, in exchange for the imperialists to die, in exchange for permanent peace. So that the real atomic war, it does not have to be a bad thing, is a bad thing is also a good thing.” These words are exactly the same in factual judgment, only a few words are changed, and they are logically and syntactically identical to Mao’s original words. All the reasons for defending Mao’s original words can also be used to defend this statement.
But the author asks: In China at that time, did anyone dare to say so? If so, it is certain that he would have been immediately declared by the “dictatorial organs” as “not enough to kill to satisfy the people’s anger” (don’t say Mao didn’t know), and would never have survived! If someone had evaluated such a statement as “long and spirited” at that time, as he does now with Mao’s original comment, he would have been shot as a “counter-revolutionary”.
Can we also imagine that in an “imperialist” country like the United States, the most insane anti-Communist “madman” would dare to openly say something like: “To prepare for the Great War, the Communist countries have madmen who drop atomic bombs. ⋯⋯… the best half of the population left, the next best one-third, 2.7 billion people in the world, there are 900 million people, there are 900 million people also good to do, in exchange for a communist country extinction, in exchange for permanent peace. So, a real atomic war is not necessarily a bad thing, but a bad thing is also a good thing.” These words were even changed by just one word.
But no matter how crazy an anti-Communist “madman” is, even if he is facing an anti-Communist audience, it is hard to say if he is under the Nazi regime, but would he dare to say such things in a democratic country? It is certain that in a democratic country, even if an anti-communist audience hears such words, they will not consider him as an enemy of the “communist state”, but as an enemy of mankind, first of all, of the American people. If he had made such a statement, he would not have said what would happen to his physical life, but his political life would have been over. Who in a democratic country would dare to stake tens of millions, let alone 1.8 billion lives, on the realization of the leader’s “great ideals”?
Obviously, the key here is not the possibility of human survival after a nuclear war, not the “two choices” (war or peace) or “one choice” (only peace), not even who is responsible for a nuclear war, but the basic values: is the leader the most important, and the lives of 900 million or even 1.8 billion people are like ants, or are the lives of hundreds of millions of people the most important, and the leader cannot take them as a “price” for the “ideal” as soon as he gets “romantic”? The realization of the “ideal”?
Therefore, I cannot agree with Shen Zhihua’s judgment that Khrushchev’s talk to Shapiro “is exactly the same as the first half of Mao’s speech”. Of course it is not the same! How can it be the same? You can certainly say that both men believed that there would be survivors after a nuclear war, but the “thrust” of their conversation was not about that at all, but about: who were those who did not survive? What should be the attitude toward their misfortunes – and therefore the position on a number of important issues such as nuclear war and the preservation of peace?
Obviously, Mao believed that the 900 million or even 1.8 billion mole crickets who did not survive did not include himself, and that he was confident that he would be able to survive and lead the remaining 900 million people to achieve the great task of “defeating imperialism” and “socializing the whole world” for all time. So the death of 1.8 billion mole crickets is just a small “price”.
“It is not necessarily a bad thing, or even “the next best thing”. And although Khrushchev was also a dictator, his “de-Stalinization” was not in place
But his humanism and sense of humanity are still beyond Mao’s reach. Khrushchev was not unaware that he himself could have survived a nuclear war if he had strengthened his personal protection with the power of his country, but he was not Mao, and he still could not remain indifferent to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. That is why he was able to compromise with John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis and save mankind from a nuclear holocaust. Mao, as we know, was very unhappy about this and strongly condemned Khrushchev’s “capitulationism”. Although everyone knew that not only was Khrushchev not “surrendering,” but that the Soviet Union was on the offensive against the United States in the Cold War throughout his and his successors’ reigns in the 1960s, and that this was not changed by the minor setback of the Cuban crisis. But offensive is offensive, and Khrushchev could not gamble with the lives of hundreds of millions of people against the United States. In this regard, we can only be grateful that the Soviet Union was not Mao Zedong in power at that time.
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