Venerating Mao

Last week, while in Nanjing, I gave a lecture on the veneration of Lenin after his death. I ended by pointing to the increase in support for the Russian communist party over recent years, and the increasing stature of Lenin (and Stalin) in these times. During a lively and fascinating discussion afterwards, someone asked whether that popularity was merely nostalgia among the older generation, the one that can remember what life was like. I responded by pointing out that the support is actually quite strong among young people, and told a story of two of my own experiences in this regard – drinking toasts to the USSR and so on with groups of 20-somethings.

As we finished the session, a young woman came up to me, a postgraduate student, and said:

‘Many young people in China venerate Mao’.

‘You too?’ I said.

‘Of course’, she smiled. ‘We venerate him more than our parents do’.

‘Yes’, I said, ‘That explains a lot. I visited the Mausoleum last year and I was stunned at how many young people were present. In fact, the majority of the thousands there, on a regular weekday, were in their teens and twenties’.

‘I have been twice’, she said.

 

Christian hymn tunes for revolutionary songs

One of the most tantalising comments from Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China concerns Christian hymn tunes. The book is, of course, the result of the first visit by a non-Chinese journalist to the soviets of the Red districts in China’s northwest in the 1930s. Not being particularly interested in matters religious, he notes in passing that the Communist youth organisations led mass singing every day. They were largely revolutionary songs, but then he comments that many of the tunes were from Christian hymns (p. 382).

Such a juicy tidbit leaves one wondering. Did they appropriate some catchy tunes from the many missionaries who plied their trade? If so, then those missionaries sowed an unexpected seed. Did they borrow them from the Russians, who inspired many a revolutionary movement? Or did those tunes themselves embody some elements from that intermittent revolutionary tradition at the core of Christianity? That would mean it was no coincidence that Chinese revolutionary songs were put to Christian hymn tunes.

 

Ten Rules of Red Army warfare

In the long struggle towards 1949, the Red Army in China had learnt a few tricks, both from the communists in Russia during the ‘civil’ war and from their own experiences. With fewer fighters, inferior equipment and fewer resources against Chang Kai-Shek’s superior forces (supplied and trained by the Germans, Italians, Americans and English), they had developed a number of rules of engagement.

1. Do not fight any losing battles. Unless there are strong indications of success, refuse engagement.

2. Surprise is the main offensive tactic of the well-led partisan group. Static war must be avoided. The partisan brigade has no auxiliary force, no rear, no line of supplies and communications except that of the enemy.

3. A careful and detailed plan of attack, and especially of retreat, must be worked out before any engagement is offered or accepted. Superior manoeuvring ability is a great advantage of the partisans, and errors in its manipulation mean extinction.

4. The greatest attention must be paid to the mintuan (the landlord militia), the first, last, and most determined line of resistance of the landlords. The mintuan must be destroyed militarily, but must, if at all possible, be won over politically to the side of the masses.

5. In a regular engagement with enemy troops the partisans must exceed the enemy in numbers. But if the enemy’s regular troops are moving, resting, or poorly guarded, a swift, determined, surprise flank attack on an organically vital spot of the enemy’s line can be made by a much smaller group. Many a Red ‘short attack’ was carried with only a few hundred against an enemy of thousands. Surprise, speed, courage, unwavering decision, flawlessly planned manoeuvre, and selection of the most vulnerable and vital spot in the enemy’s ‘anatomy’ are absolutely essential.

6. In actual combat the partisan line must have the greatest elasticity. Once it becomes obvious that their calculation of enemy strength or preparedness or fighting power is in error, the partisans should be able to disengage with the same speed as they began the attack.

7. The tactics of distraction, decoy, diversion, ambush, feint and irritation must be mastered. In Chinese these tactics are called ‘the principle of pretending to attack the east while attacking the west’.

8. Avoid engagements with the main force of the enemy, concentrating on the weakest link, or the most vital part.

9. Every precaution must be taken to prevent the enemy from locating the partisans’ main forces. For this reason, partisans should avoid concentrating in one place when the enemy is advancing, and should change their position frequently – two or three times in one day or night just before attack.

10. Besides superior mobility, the partisans, being inseparable from the local masses, have the advantage of superior intelligence; the greatest use must be made of this. Ideally, every peasant should be on the partisans’ intelligence staff.

From Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China, pp. 275-76.

 

Focus-field versus the alienated public sphere

Part of the ongoing debate in Western bourgeois states is the role and status of the public sphere. All the recent commentators I have been able to check attempt to widen the public sphere by including those that have been excluded in some fashion. Most recently this involves religion. The problem is that the public sphere is built on what Tim dubbed the other day as the ‘myth of secular inclusion’. That is, it’s an exclusive universal, gate-keeping who counts as part of that universal. It is simply unable to include all. Ultimately, the identification of this problem goes back to Hegel, who identified the basic alienation of the bourgeois state in the rupture between the state and civil society (the realm of social, economic, religious activity, etc). So if the public sphere is constituted by civil society, then it is built on a structural alienation. The zone that is supposed to foster debate, ‘freedom’ of the press, new thoughts and political directions, even ‘democracy’, is actually a warped and twisted space. All of which shows up in the myth of secular exclusion.

As a result, I have been fascinated by what Tien Chenshan calls ‘focus-field’ in Chinese communism, in which civil society or the public sphere is rather meaningless. I wonder whether this limited description by Edgar Snow captures some of this, when he writes of  the Red government of northwest China in the 1930s:

The structure of representative government was built up from the village soviet, as the smallest unit: above it were the district soviet, the county soviet, the provincial and central soviets. Each village elected its delegates to the higher soviets clear up to the delegates elected for the Soviet Congress. Suffrage was universal over the age of sixteen, but it was not equal [favouring tenant peasants, handicraft worker, and rural workers].

Various committees were established under each of the district soviets. An all-powerful committee, usually elected in a mass meeting shortly after the occupation of a district by the Red Army, and preceded by an intensified propaganda campaign, was the revolutionary committee. It called for elections or re-elections, and closely cooperated with the Communist Party. Under the district soviet, and appointed by it, were committees for education, cooperatives, military training, political training, land, public health, partisan training, revolutionary defense, enlargement of the Red Army, agrarian mutual aid, Red Army land tilling, and others. Such committees were found in every branch organ of the soviets, right up to the Central Government, where policies were coordinated and state decisions made.

Organization did not stop with the government itself. The Communist Party had an extensive membership among farmers and workers, in the towns and villages. In addition there were the Young Communists … organization for women … adult farmers … partisan brigades … The work of all these organizations was coordinated by the Central Soviet Government, the Communist Party, and the Red Army. Here we need not enter into statistical detail to explain the organic connections of these groups, but it can be said in general that they were all skilfully interwoven, each directly under the guidance of some Communist, though decisions of organization, membership, and work seemed to be carried out in a democratic way by the peasants themselves.

 

Mao’s path to communism

When he was still a teenager and had finished his time in the Hunan army, a youthful Mao began looking about for a purpose in life. While in Changsha:

I began to read advertisements in the papers. Many schools were then being opened and used this medium to attract new students. I had no special standard for judging schools; I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. An advertisement for a police school caught my eye and I registered for entrance to it. Before I was examined, however, I read an advertisement for a soap-making ‘school’. No tuition was required, board was furnished and a small salary was promised. It was an attractive and inspiring advertisement. It told of the great social benefits of soap making, how it would enrich the country and enrich the people. I changed my mind about the police school and decided to become a soap maker. I paid my dollar registration fee here also.

Meanwhile a friend of mine had become a law student and he urged me to enter his school. I also read an alluring advertisement of this law school, which promised many wonderful things … Fate intervened again in the form of an advertisement for a commercial school. Another friend counselled me that the country was in economic war, and that what was most needed were economists who could build up the nation’s economy. His argument prevailed and I spent another dollar to register in this commercial school … Meanwhile, however, I continued to read advertisements, and one day I read one describing the charms of a higher commercial school. It was operated by the government, it offered a wide curriculum, and I heard that its instructors were very able men … The trouble with my new school, I discovered, was that most of the courses were taught in English, and, in common with other students, I knew little English … Disgusted with this situation, I withdrew from the institution at the end of the month and continued my perusal of advertisements.

My next scholastic adventure was in the First Provincial Middle School … I did not like this school. Its curriculum was limited and its regulations were objectionable … I had come to the conclusion that it would be better for me to read and study alone … I managed to resist the appeals of all future advertising.

Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China, pp. 143-45.

 

Eleven rules of the Red Army

Before the revolution, the Red Army in China had the following eleven rules, divided into two groups, one of three, the other of eight.

The three preliminary rules:

1. Prompt obedience to orders

2. No confiscations whatever from the poor peasantry

3. Prompt delivery directly to the government (Red soviets), for its disposal, of all goods confiscated from the landlords

The eight key rules, with a focus on dealings with peasants:

1. Replace all doors when you leave a house (!)

2. Return and roll up the straw matting on which you slept

3. Be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can

4. Return all borrowed articles

5. Replace all damaged article

6. Be honest in all transactions with the peasants

7. Pay for all articles purchased

8. Be sanitary, and, especially, establish latrines a safe distance from people’s houses

Apparently, these eight form a song, sung on the march or while working.

Update: here it is.

 

A brief pause on the crazy lecture tour

Two weeks of perpetual motion thus far: Beijing, along the Chang Jiang (‘Yangtze’) for three days, Wuhan, Frankfurt and then all night (unplanned) on trains and stations in the Romanian countryside, Baia Mare in Transylvania, and then more trains to Berlin. A few preliminary images; reflections later.

Heartwarming to see Lenin posters about. There should be more, many more.

I guess you can really do this only in China.

But now it gets a little more interesting:

For this is none other than the bed of the younger Mao and his wife – when they lived in Wuhan. So this is, as I observed when we were ushered in, where it happened.

Couldn’t resist sharing the same space … until I was sternly reprimanded by the staff.

I really must get a sign like this for home.

But then, after 60 hours of travel, most of it on multiple trains, I was in Romania.

I spent some time hanging out with the locals in Transylvania, in the mountains and villages.

From the old woman’s house, we stumbled across the local distillery.

That small mug was full of Palincă, plum brandy. He handed it to me and said ‘drink up’ …

Which is probably why I agreed to wear some local winter gear.

Thankfully, I was not alone in enjoying such delights.

 

Communist devotional literature

Subtitle: A Compendium of Devotional Literature 1966-1970.

(Note to the right my prized copy of the movie, The Fall of Berlin, soon to be shown at the inaugural Stalin Prize evening.)

 

Am I a Stalinist?

Apologies for the slightly self-serving and icky post, but … a commenter seems to have taken exception to my earlier rather mild observations on the media tart and western sycophant known as the Dalai Lama. Apparently, I am a ‘Stalinist and an apologist for the strong-arm tactics of the Maoists and the PRC‘. Oh my, what a compliment. Must add that to the list of glowing assessments in my ‘about’ page.