Book Review: Mao The Unknown Story by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday

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This book was first published in 2005, and has no doubt been reviewed many times, but since its subject still casts his shadow over world affairs, some forty years after his death, periodical reviews from a later perspective may still have something to add. Mao Tse-tung was perhaps the most terrible tyrant to appear in a century that was more than usually endowed with such totalitarians. But while the regimes established by Hitler and Stalin have been swept away, at least temporarily, the ‘Thoughts of Chairman Mao’ still play a part in directing the affairs of the world’s most populous country and second biggest economy.

The authors of this book carried out extensive research over many years. The number of people and documents consulted is truly impressive, and uncovering much of the material must have required great resourcefulness as well as tenacity of purpose. In his pursuit of power, Mao Tse-tung carried out many atrocious deeds, but he took great care to keep his connections hidden during his lifetime, even to the extent of killing people who were in the know. Since his demise, his successors have continued to conceal what records remain. In view of this, gathering the material for this book must be recorded as a considerable achievement and one for which the whole free world should give thanks.

Mao Tse-tung cared nothing for human life. Not only did his ruthless drive for nuclear weapons and superpower status result in at least 70 million deaths amongst the peasants of China, but he turned on all those who might have been his friends. Even in his last years he denied Chou En-lai, his decades old helper and premiere, an operation for cancer, until it was too late to save his life. It seems that the ailing Moa couldn’t face Chou living longer and succeeding to the leadership.

During his reign as leader of China, everyone lived in fear, and fear was Mao’s tool of choice for maintaining total control. Those close to him like his last wife, Jiang Qing, and leader of the military, Lin Biao, were feared by all underlings, but each had good reason to fear the Chairman. During the Cultural Revolution of the mid and late 1960s, Moa succeeded in spreading fear throughout the country, with rampaging Red Guards brandishing the Little Red Book and finding any trivial excuse to persecute unfortunate individuals. Throughout Mao’s reign persecution was savage in the extreme, involving violence, mental and physical torture and summary execution, often by methods that were intentionally lingering and painful.

Forty years after Mao’s death, life is undeniably better for the Chinese population. Government policies no longer result in mass starvation, and many people have grown prosperous from the adoption of a relatively free market economy. But Mao’s regime remains in overall control, and dissenting voices are quickly silenced. The gratuitous violence of his rule may have been set aside, but the iron hand of his system remains in the velvet glove.

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Source by John Powell