Mao Zedong
Why includedSpeaker of all 411 entries; the editors re-edited three decades of his writing by theme into thirty-three chapters.
Speaker of all 411 entries. The quotations are drawn from his articles, speeches and documents after 1927, arranged by the editors into thirty-three thematic chapters.
Key facts
- Speaker of all 411 entries, spanning roughly 1927-1965
- Chapter 22 (Methods of thinking and work) quotes him most, 38 entries
- The single most-cited source is the 'Selected Works of Mao Zedong', 287 times
- The 1966 revised edition carries a preface by Lin Biao, dated 16 December
Birth & early life
Born 1893 in Shaoshan, Xiangtan, Hunan. In his youth he studied the classics at a local village school, then went to Changsha, where he read new learning and translated Western works. Both readings leave traces in his later writing: he often quotes classical idioms and fables, while his mode of argument comes from modern philosophy rather than Neo-Confucianism.
His father was a peasant of Shaoshan with some twenty-odd mu of paddy, comfortably above average in the village; he later recalled that his boyhood quarrels with his father were his earliest experience of 'resistance'.
Rise
In the 1920s he joined the labour and peasant movements. In March 1927 he wrote 'Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan', the result of a 32-day field study - later the source of Chapter 31's first entry and many in Chapter 23. The same year, at a meeting in Hankou, he advanced the phrase 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'.
He took part in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, among the earliest members after the Shanghai and Jiaxing meetings, and thereafter worked on peasant movement and propaganda in Hunan and Guangdong.
Coming to power
After 1935 he became one of the principal leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. During the War of Resistance he wrote 'On Practice', 'On Contradiction' and 'On Protracted War', forming the skeleton of his later method - also the main sources of Chapter 22 and Chapter 5. At the 1945 7th Congress, 'On Coalition Government' was made the programmatic report.
The Zunyi Conference (January 1935) established his leading role in military affairs; the strategic judgements of the Long March, the war against Japan and the civil war mostly came from him - which also explains why so many military-chapter quotations are attributed to him.
After 1949
After 1949 he handled state-building and foreign relations together. In February 1957 he published 'On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People', proposing the two kinds of contradiction - the direct source of Chapter 4. In May 1963 he wrote the very short 'Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?', on the two leaps of the cognitive process.
He simultaneously pushed social transformations - script reform, patriotic health campaigns, agricultural cooperation - whose arguments are scattered through many chapters but mostly outside the few most-quoted lines.
Legacy & influence
His articles and speeches were collected from the 1950s as the 'Selected Works of Mao Zedong', becoming the book's single most-cited source (287 times). From 1964 the editors lifted quotations from these materials and arranged them by theme into a book. This quotation book was printed in huge numbers in the late twentieth century and translated into many languages.
After the reform and opening, his thought was summarised as 'Mao Zedong Thought' and placed in the constitution alongside 'Deng Xiaoping Theory' as guiding ideology; this book is its most popular arrangement in quotation form.
Personal style
His writing often uses idioms, fables and examples from classical novels: 'The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains' for sustained effort, the 'ten months' pregnancy / one day's birth' metaphor for investigation, 'play the piano' for work coordination. These are also among the most widely circulated lines of the book.
He liked swimming and crossed the Yangtze several times after 1956; he also wrote classical-style poetry, some of which later entered various anthologies and differs in tone from his political prose.
Quotations in this book
The force at the core leading our cause forward is the Chinese Communist Party. The theoretical basis guiding our thinking is Marxism-Leninism.
First entry of Chapter 1, from the opening address to the 1st NPC, 1954.
Policy and tactics are the life of the Party; leading comrades at all levels must give them full attention and must never on any account be negligent.
Entry 13 of Chapter 1, also the chapter's last entry.
Everyone engaged in practical work must investigate conditions at the lower levels. Such investigation is especially necessary for those who know theory but do not know the actual conditions, for otherwise they will not be able to link theory with practice. Although my assertion, "No investigation no right to speak", has been ridiculed as "narrow empiricism", to this day I do not regret having made it; far from regretting it, I still insist that without investigation there cannot possibly be any right to speak. There are many people who "the moment they alight from the official carriage" make a hullabaloo, spout opinions, criticize this and condemn that; but, in fact, ten out of ten of them will meet with failure. For such views or criticisms, which are not based on thorough investigation, are nothing but ignorant twaddle. Countless times our Party suffered at the hands of these "imperial envoys", who rushed here, there and everywhere. Stalin rightly says that "theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice". And he rightly adds that "practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory". Nobody should be labelled a "narrow empiricist" except the "practical man" who gropes in the dark and lacks perspective and foresight.
Chapter 23. One of the most widely circulated methodological lines.
Representative works
- 'Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan' (1927)
- 'On Practice' & 'On Contradiction' (1937)
- 'On Protracted War' (1938)
- 'On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People' (1957)
Category:Speaker & editors —— The speaker of the quotations, and how the book was compiled