Mao: The Unknown Story

Many of Stalin’s agents with Mao were soon to die abnormal deaths. Orlov died shortly afterwards in a plane crash. Mao’s KGB doctor, Melnikov, vanished without trace after accompanying Mao on his trip in Russia in winter 1949–50. Borodin perished from torture in 1951. Vladimirov died at the age of forty-seven, in 1953—murdered by security overlord Lavrenti Beria with slow-acting poison, according to Vladimirov’s son, the post-Communist presidential candidate (and Olympic weight-lifting champion) Yuri Vlasov.

33. TWO TYRANTS WRESTLE (1949–50 AGE 55–56)

MAO’S PARAMOUNT requirement from Stalin was help to build a world-class war machine and turn China into a global power. The key to this was not how many weapons Stalin would provide, but the technology and infrastructure to manufacture armaments in China. At the time, China’s ordnance factories could only produce small arms. If Mao was to move at the tempo he desired — faster than Japan had done when building up an advanced arms industry from scratch in the nineteenth century — he needed foreign assistance. And Stalin was not just Mao’s best bet; he was his only bet. The Cold War had recently begun. There was no way the West could possibly help him achieve his goals without him changing the nature of his regime, which was out of the question.

But Mao had a problem: he needed to persuade Stalin that his ambitions were manageable from Stalin’s own perspective. So he made ostentatious demonstrations of loyalty, lavishing praise on Stalin to the Master’s top envoy Mikoyan, and putting on an act for his liaison man Kovalev. The latter reported to Stalin that Mao once “sprang up, raised his arms and cried out three times: ‘May Stalin live ten thousand years.’ ” Along with the froth, Mao offered something very substantial — to cut China’s ties with the West. “We would be glad if all the embassies of capitalist countries got out of China for good,” Mao told Kovalev.

This attitude was also motivated by domestic concerns. “Recognition would facilitate subversive activities [by] the USA and Britain,” Mao told Mikoyan on 31 January 1949. He feared that any Western presence at all would embolden liberals and give his opponents an opening, however slight. So he battened down the hatches, imposing a policy he called “cleaning house before inviting guests.” “Cleaning house” was a euphemism for drastic, bloody purges and the installation of an airtight control system nationwide, which included sealing off the whole country, banning Chinese from leaving, and expelling virtually all Westerners. Shutting out foreigners was also a way to ensure there were no outside observers to the purges. Only after he had “cleaned”—or rather cleansed — house, would Mao open the door a crack to admit a few closely controlled foreigners, who were always known as “guests,” not visitors.

Given the kind of regime he had in mind, Mao had cause to feel worried. Western influence was strong in China. “Many representatives of the Chinese intelligentsia received their education in America, Britain, Germany and Japan,” Mao told Mikoyan. Virtually all modern educational institutions were either founded by Westerners (often missionaries) or heavily influenced by the West. “In addition to newspapers, magazines and news agencies,” Liu wrote to Stalin in summer 1949, America and Britain alone had 31 universities and specialized schools, 32 religious educational institutions and 29 libraries in China, as well as 2,688 schools, 3,822 religious missions and organizations, and 147 hospitals.

China was short of educated people, especially skilled personnel, and Mao needed these people to get the country working, particularly the cities. Contrary to common assumption, it was the cities he cared about most. If we can’t run the cities, he told top officials in March 1949, “we won’t last.” His aim was to scare the educated class out of their liberal Western attitudes. This would be much easier to achieve if potential dissidents knew there were no Western representatives in the country to whom they could appeal, or any foreign media to tell their story.

Mao was also concerned about the appeal the West had inside his own Party. His army loved American weapons: his own bodyguards compared Soviet sub-machine-guns contemptuously with US-made carbines. “The [US] carbines are so light and accurate. Why can’t we have more carbines?” they pleaded with Mao. American cars positively inspired awe. One CCP official in the Russian-occupied port of Dalian had a shiny black 1946 Ford: “It was great to show off with,” he recalled, “and roused the interest of the highest command of the Soviet army,” who asked to borrow it for a day, which put him one up on the Russians. Mao’s aim was to nip in the bud any chance of the West exerting any influence on his Party, in any field, from ideas to consumer goods. In this Mao was more thorough even than Stalin.