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The Rhetoric of Mao Zedong
Transforming China and Its People
Xing Lu, Thomas W. Benson
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eBook - ePub
The Rhetoric of Mao Zedong
Transforming China and Its People
Xing Lu, Thomas W. Benson
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About This Book
This thorough examination of Mao's speeches and writings and how they reshaped a nation "is critical to an understanding of modern China" ( Choice ). Mao Zedong fundamentally transformed China from a Confucian society characterized by hierarchy and harmony into a socialist state guided by communist ideologies of class struggle and radicalization. It was a transformation made possible largely by Mao's rhetorical ability to attract, persuade, and mobilize millions of Chinese people. In this book, Xing Lu analyzes Mao's speeches and writings over a span of sixty years, tracing the sources and evolution of his discourse, analyzing his skills as an orator and mythmaker, assessing his symbolic power and continuing presence in contemporary China, and observing that Mao's rhetorical legacy has been commoditized, culturally consumed, and politically appropriated since his death. Applying both Western rhetorical theories and Chinese rhetorical concepts to reach a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of his rhetorical legacy, Lu shows how Mao employed a host of rhetorical appeals and strategies drawn from Chinese tradition and how he interpreted the discourse of Marxism-Leninism to serve foundational themes of his message. She traces the historical contexts in which these themes, his philosophical orientations, and his political views were formed and how they transformed China and Chinese people. Lu also examines how certain ideas are promoted, modified, and appropriated in Mao's rhetoric. His appropriation of Marxist theory of class struggle, his campaigns of transforming common people into new communist advocates, his promotion of Chinese nationalism, and his stand on China's foreign policy all contributed to and were responsible for reshaping Chinese thought patterns, culture, and communication behaviors.
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Notes
Preface
1. The term “liberation,” or jiefang 解放, is used in Mainland China to refer to the 1949 takeover from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party. The same event is referred to as “falling into the enemy’s hands,” or lunxian 沦陷, in Taiwan.
2. GDP growth in China 1952–2014, http://www.chinability.com/GDP.htm (accessed June 20, 2015).
3. The book is pocket-sized and contains a collection of Mao’s sayings and aphorisms. It was originally compiled by Lin Biao for the People’s Liberation Army.
4. The song can be found at http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTY4MzM5NDg=.html (accessed June 25, 2013).
5. Mao wrote a poem in 1961 praising Chinese militia women; it reads, “How bright and brave they look, shouldering five-foot rifles. On the parade ground lit up by the first gleams of day. China’s daughters have high-aspiring minds. They love the battle-array, not silks and satins.” The poem popularized the image of young women who rejected their femininity and instead embraced masculine styles in clothing, hair, and demeanor. See Mao 1976, 77.
6. Another reason for my doubts about Mao was that my parents were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, especially my father, who was almost beaten to death. I have recorded my family’s suffering during this time in Lu 2004b.
Introduction
1. Since the 1980s China has become the world’s fastest-growing economy as “its GDP has increased by an average of almost 10% a year for the past 30 years” (Woodall 2009, 61).
2. Agence France Presse, “China Marks Mao’s Birth with Noodles and Songs,” http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=66862 (accessed January 14, 2014).
3. Examples of such programs are “The Long March” and “In Praise of Yan’an,” performed by highly popular Chinese actors.
4. Between 1951 and 1976, 250 million copies of the five volumes were printed. The sale of Mao’s works declined significantly after Mao’s death in September 1976 but has gone up since 1989, when Mao fever took place in China.
5. The caricature of “evil Mao” was mostly seen in the era immediately following 1949, when American sensitivities to communism were especially pronounced. For example, during the Cold War in the 1950s, the American media guru Henry Luce staged a propaganda campaign against Red China in his magazines Time, Life, and Fortune. A representative example of the American anti-Maoist sentiment is found in the caption that accompanied Mao’s portrait on the February 7, 1949, cover of Time: “The Communist Boss Learned Tyranny as a Boy.” In the eyes of Americans, Mao was not only China’s Hitler; he was also Stalin’s and Lenin’s ardent disciple, epitomizing the worst of the violence and brutality that had accompanied other authoritarian leaders around the world.
6. For example, in his 2005 review of their book, Andrew Nathan concluded, “It is clear that many of Chang and Halliday’s claims are based on distorted, misleading or far-fetched use of evidence.” Stuart Schram’s review (2007) further pointed out inaccuracies in some of the book’s accounts of Mao, while also noting their problematic reliance on sources that cannot be checked and claims that are based on speculation or circumstantial evidence.
7. Agnes Smedley and Anna Louise Strong, two other American journalists, gave favorable accounts of Mao throughout their journalistic writings on coverage of China. In their recent biography, Mao: The Real Story (2012), Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine posit that Snow’s sympathetic portrayal of Mao, in particular, struck a chord with Western leftist intellectuals and set the tone for subsequent positive depictions of Mao.
8. Western Mao studies began with Benjamin Schwartz’s seminal publication Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (1951). Schwartz was among the first to use the oft-contended term “Maoism,” and his work evoked a number of scholarly debates centered on Mao. Subsequently Stuart Schram published a series of books detailing Mao’s life, speeches, and thought from the 1960s until his death in 1976; a number of other biographical publications also emerged during this time (e.g., Chen 1965; Paloczi-Horvath 1962; Payne 1950).
9. In China scholarly studies of Mao have largely conformed to the government’s official assessment of him. This body of work can be divided into a number of different categories, each representing a unique perspective or community. The first group of studies on Mao comprises works produced by party intellectuals who held prominent positions in Chinese academic institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Social Science (中国社会科学院), the Chinese Center for Study of Party Documents (中央文献研究室), and the Office of Chinese Communist History (党史研究室). For example, Pang Xianzhi (逢先知), Gong Yuzhi (龚育之), Jin Chongji (金冲及), and Li Junru (李君如） wrote relatively academic treatments of Mao’s life, his ideas, and his place in Chinese history. The most authoritative Chinese books on Mao are the two volumes of a biography of Mao Zedong, 1949–76 (毛泽东传), edited by Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongqui and publishedin 1996 and 2003, respectively (Pang and Jin 2003). These two volumes endorse Mao as a national hero who made invaluable contributions to his nation by establishing the CCP, the People’s Liberation Army, and a socialist Chinese government; moreover they offer high praise of Mao’s writings. These latter volumes are said to be based on the historical documents of the Communist Party and Mao’s original works, and they represent the party’s official stance on Mao.
10. Some representative memoirs reflecting these perspectives include Quan Yanchi (权延赤）2001; Chen Shiju (陈士榘）1993; Chen Changjiang (陈长江） and Zhao Guilai 赵洼来) 1998; Shi Zhe (师哲) 1991; Guo Jinrong (郭金荣) 2009; and Li Rui (李锐) 2005a, 2005b. Mao Zedong’s grandson Mao Xinyu, who currently is a major general in the People’s Liberation Army, has taken on the task of writing about his grandfather. He has thus far published several books on the subject; see, for example, Mao Xinyu 2003 爷爷毛泽东.
11. English publications that depict Mao in a negative light, such as Zhishui Li 1994; and Jung Chang and Jon Halliday 2005, are banned in China. In recent years a concerted effort has been made to translate Western books on Mao into Chinese. Terrill 1980, which was translated into Chinese, has sold well in China, and other Western scholars of Mao such as Benjamin Schwartz, Stuart Schram, and Maurice Meisner are referenced in China by writers seeking support for their depictions of “the good Mao.” However, there is little evidence of any real scholarly exchange between Chinese and Western Mao studies experts.
12. The Chinese version of the document can be found at http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/71380/71387/71588/4854598.html (accessed August 15, 2013). The English version of the document can be found in Beijing Review 27 (July 1981): 6.
13. Mao wrote these words in his letter to Jiang Qing, his third wife. See Mao 1998a, 72.
14. To name a few: the analysis of President Lincoln’s speeches in assuring support for the Civil War (Watson 2000); in the religious transformation of faith (Dufault-Hunter 2012); in the study of transformative rhetoric of African American leaders and scholars in black thought and movement (McPhail 1996; Powell 2004); and in Kayam 2014.
15. “Mao’s Blood Revolution Revealed” 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EjxieKgvWY (accessed December 2013).
16. Although Mao held various positions within the party before 1943, none of these roles gave him actual power in the way that his chairmanship did. I argue, therefore, that his real influence over the CCP, and China more generally, began on March 20, 1943, when the politburo of the CCP named Mao as chairman of the CCP (thereby replacing Zhang Wentian, who had been the former leader of the CCP since 1935).
17. Some Chinese and Western scholars of Mao shared the view that Mao’s five volumes of works reflect more of the collective wisdom of the party. In this sense, the authenticity of these texts is questioned, and it might be difficult to discern what deems to be Mao’s original voice and what constitutes the party’s collective thought. While I fully acknowledge the issue of originality of Mao’s works, my analysis focuses largely on what is available and on the rhetorical capabilities and effects of the writings under Mao’s name.
18. Chinese language is what is known as “high-context” language, in which the meanings of words are often ambiguous and allusive. See Hall “Context and Meaning” in his book Beyond Culture, 1976.
19. A number of scholars have debated both the originality and the proper construal of Mao’s written works; along these lines, Cheek (2010) posits that Mao’s writings are similar to biblical texts not simply in terms of their influence but rather because they are open to so many different interpretations. Although the influence of Mao’s writings can be traced to the early 1940s in the Communist-occupied areas of Shanxi Province, there were also different versions of his essays and articles circulated in different regions. In 1949 the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party decided to form a committee to establish a unified version of Mao’s works. The first four volumes were published in 1951, 1952, 1953, and 1960, respectively, with the fifth volume published in 1977. The English versions of the first four volumes were published in 1967 (translated by a number of prominent scholars and translators including Jin Yueling 金岳霖 and Qian Zhongshu 钱钟书. It is believed, however, that Mao revised and changed some of his early speeches and essays before they were published in these official volumes. This adds weight to Wittfogel’s (1960) argument that Mao modified certain sections of pieces such as “The Hunan Report” in order to suit the changing role of the CCP as China’s ruling party.
20. It is well acknowledged by both Chinese and Western Mao scholars that most of Mao’s writings were presumably done by Mao himself, but his secretaries Chen Boda, Hu Qiaomu, and Tian Jiaying—all of whom were top-notch party propagandists—edited, revised, and polished some of the works that were published under Mao’s name. They even penned a few of Mao’s articles by imitating Mao’s style of writing. However, these articles were revised and approved by Mao before publication. Some articles, such as “The Present Situation and Our Tasks” 目前的形势和我们的任务, were in Mao’s own spoken words but were written down by his wife Jiang Qing (Zhu Xiangqian 2007). Based on my own reading of Mao’s complete works, Mao’s writings prior to 1949 were more consistent in rhetorical themes and styles. Therefore my speculation is that Mao’s works before 1949 were largely written by him with possible proofreading by his secretaries. His post-1949 writings may be more representative of the party’s collective position. However, after 1957 Mao stopped writing lengthy articles and speeches. He issued only short directives or wrote letters. These short directives and letters were published as his works and were more likely written by him. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s directives were issued more or less in spoken form rather than written; his foreign policies, in particular, were often revealed through his conversational remarks in meetings with foreign guests. While reading all of Mao’s published works in Chinese, I examined the consistency within as well as the variations among Mao’s rhetorical themes and styles from different periods of Mao’s life.
1. Rhetorical Themes in Mao Zedong’s Early Writings
1. For the English translation, see “Mao Zedong’s Funeral Oration in Honor of His Mother,” in Schram 1992, 419–420. In this oration Mao expressed his deep feelings toward his mother and highly praised her for being a kind-hearted and giving person who sacrificed her entire life for her family and helping others.
2. The Three Character Classics was written in the thirteenth century. The author is unknown. The booklet embodies the credo of Confucianism in simple and common language. It was written in the form of three Chinese characters and is easy to remember. This text is the first ...