Mao: The Unknown Story

^†Twenty-one Americans and one Scot opted to go to China, where most soon became disillusioned and left, often after great difficulties. Their defection stoked fears in the West about “brainwashing,” as did captured airmen’s “confessions” about dropping germ bombs. While the top brass worried that some of those who “confessed” might spill hi-tech knowledge of great use to an enemy, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover mounted a vast surveillance campaign on returned POWs, fearing “Manchurian Candidates,” the then US Attorney General Herbert Brownell told us.

The official claim is 152,000 deaths, but in private Deng Xiao-ping told Japanese Communist leaders that the number of Chinese killed was 400,000. The same figure was given by Kang Sheng to Albania’s Enver Hoxha. These sacrifices did not earn China much gratitude from North Korea. When we tried to gain access to the Chinese war memorial in Pyongyang, Korean officials refused permission. To the question, “How many Chinese died in the Korean War?” the reply came, most grudgingly, after two refusals to answer: “Perhaps 10,000.”

36. LAUNCHING THE SECRET SUPERPOWER PROGRAM (1953–54 AGE 59–60)

AFTER MAO had accepted an end to the Korean War, in May 1953, Stalin’s successors in the Kremlin agreed to sell China ninety-one large industrial enterprises. With these assured, on top of the fifty projects agreed to by Stalin, Mao was able to launch his blueprint for industrialization on 15 June. This focused exclusively on building up arms industries, to make China a superpower. It was in effect Mao’s Superpower Program. Its utterly military nature was concealed, and is little known in China today.

Mao wanted to channel every resource the nation had into this program. The whole “industrialisation” process had to be completed “in ten to fifteen years,” or at most a bit longer. Speed, he said over and over again, was everything—“the essence.” What he did not spell out was his real goal: to become a military power in his own lifetime, and have the world listen when he spoke.

Mao was approaching sixty, and he often referred to his own age and mortality when discussing this industrialization. Talking to a group of his guards on one occasion, he stressed: “We will make it in fifteen years,” then out of nowhere came the words: “Confucius died at seventy-three.” The subtext was: Surely I can live longer than Confucius, and thus be able to see results within fifteen years.

On another occasion he said that “we can overtake Britain … in fifteen years or slightly more,” and then added: “I myself also have a Five-Year Plan: to live … another fifteen years, then I will be satisfied; of course, it will be even better to over-fulfill”—i.e., live even longer.

Mao was not interested in posterity. Back in 1918 he had written: “Some say one has a responsibility for history. I don’t believe it … People like me are not building achievements to leave for future generations …” (our italics). These remained his views throughout his life. In 1950, after visiting Lenin’s mausoleum, Mao said to his entourage that the superb preservation of the corpse was only for the sake of others; it was irrelevant to Lenin. Once Lenin died, he felt nothing, and it did not matter to him how his corpse was kept.

When Mao died, he left neither a will nor an heir — and, in fact, unlike most Chinese parents, especially Chinese emperors, he was indifferent about having an heir, which was extremely unusual (in stark contrast to Chiang Kai-shek, who went to inordinate lengths to protect his heir). Mao’s eldest son, who died in the Korean War, had no offspring, as his wife did not want to have children while she was still studying. Mao put no pressure on him to produce an heir, even though he was the only one of Mao’s sons who was of sound mind, as the younger son was mentally handicapped.

For decades to come, Mao’s determination to preside over a military superpower in his own lifetime was the single most important factor affecting the fate of the Chinese population.

MAO WAS IN a rush for his arsenal. In September 1952, when Chou En-lai gave Stalin Peking’s shopping list for its First Five-Year Plan (1953–57), Stalin’s reaction was: “This is a very unbalanced ratio. Even during wartime we didn’t have such high military expenses.” “The question here is … whether we will be able to produce this much equipment.” According to official statistics, spending during this period on the military, plus arms-related industries, took up 61 percent of the budget — although in reality the percentage was higher, and would rise as the years progressed.