First of all, I am not a historian and I do not have any personal
viewpoints on Mao Zedong ( Mao tse-tung). I use these questions to do
my personal research and broaden my horizons. I present below my
findings.
If you have already researched his personality and character, you
might have come across the links given below. The first article I
would want to present is from TIME, which did a poll and survey on the
100 most influential men of the century. Some excerpt is given below
"...In February 1957, Mao drew his thoughts on China together in the
form of a rambling speech on "The Correct Handling of Contradictions
Among the People." Mao's notes for the speech reveal the curious
mixture of jocularity and cruelty, of utopian visions and blinkered
perceptions, that lay at the heart of his character. Mao admitted that
15% or more of the Chinese people were hungry and that some critics
felt a "disgust" with Marxism. He spoke too of the hundreds of
thousands who had died in the revolution so far, but firmly rebutted
figures ? quoted in Hong Kong newspapers ? that 20 million had
perished. "How could we possibly kill 20 million people?" he asked. It
is now established that at least that number died in China during the
famine that followed the Great Leap between 1959 and 1961. In the
Cultural Revolution that followed only five years later, Mao used the
army and the student population against his opponents. Once again
millions suffered or perished as Mao combined the ruthlessness of
Shang Yang with the absolute confidence of the long-distance swimmer
...
Despite the agony he caused, Mao was both a visionary and a realist.
He learned as a youth not only how Shang Yang brought harsh laws to
the Chinese people, even when they saw no need for them, but also how
Shang Yang's rigors helped lay the foundation in 221 B.C. of the
fearsome centralizing state of Qin. Mao knew too that the Qin rulers
had been both hated and feared and that their dynasty was soon
toppled, despite its monopoly of force and efficient use of terror.
But in his final years, Mao seems to have welcomed the association of
his own name with these distant Qin precursors. The Qin, after all,
had established a united state from a universe in chaos. They
represented, like Mao, not the best that China had to offer, but
something ruthless yet canny, with the power briefly to impose a
single will on the scattered emotions of the errant multitude. It is
on that grimly structured foundation that Mao's successors have been
able to build, even as they struggle, with obvious nervousness, to
contain the social pressures that their own more open policies are
generating. Surely Mao's simple words reverberate in their ears: As
long as you are not afraid, you won't sink."
http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/mao.html
Time also puts him as a man of feeling.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/mao_related.html
Time also carries articles from his wife Chiang Ch'ing. This might
present insight into Mao's character and personality that we are not
aware of. Subscription to TIME archive is needed to access the link
below and hence I am not aware of the contents of the article given
below. It is my assumption that it will present a good reading.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,946770,00.html
Given below is one more resource that I have come accross in my
research. The views presented may be biased, but it does present a
chronological sequence of his life and rise to power and significant
happenings in his career. Also this resource has links to other
relevent resources on Mao.
"...Though the number of deaths that occurred in China as a result of
Mao's reign places him in the same league as Stalin or Hitler, Mao was
of a completely different calibre to those two genocidal murderers. In
less than a lifetime he raised China from being a broken, feudalistic
anachronism to a united world force. His legacy is as terrible as it
is impressive, from the logical conclusion to his theory of continuous
revolution as played out on Pol Pot's Killing Fields, to China's
current global position as the country most likely to become the
world's next superpower"
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.htm
Last, but not the least I would like to refer you to his obituary in
New York Times which is regarded by most as an unbiased source of
information ( atleast in those times).
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1226.html
I hope you find this information helpful.
-ddhara |
