Mao: The Unknown Story

Mao’s problem was that this was a time of great uncertainty for him — in some ways even more uncertain than under Stalin, who had fundamentally been committed to Mao because Mao was a Stalinist. But Khrushchev had rejected Stalinism, and there was no telling if this bulldozer might not turn on Stalinist leaders — maybe even on Mao himself. Indeed, Khrushchev had just brought down the Stalinist Hungarian Party chief, Rákosi, the only European Communist leader Stalin had trusted to talk to the Chinese leader during Mao’s visit to Russia. Furthermore, in August, emboldened by Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, a move had been made to try to vote North Korea’s seemingly well-entrenched dictator Kim Il Sung out of power at a Party plenum.

Mao, too, was facing a Party conclave: the first congress of his own Party since taking power, which was set for September. He could not delay it, as it had been widely publicized, and the new climate since Khrushchev’s exposure of Stalin was very much one of abiding by the rules. Mao’s concern was that if his colleagues felt cornered they might try something at the congress, like kicking him upstairs, or even voting him out, by exposing the full implications of the Superpower Program. Only a few weeks before, Khrushchev’s delegate to Mao’s congress, Anastas Mikoyan, had supervised the dethronement of Rákosi in Hungary.

Mao took a series of steps to make sure that the congress posed no threat. First he fired warning shots across his colleagues’ bows. A few days before the congress, on 10 September, he reminisced to them about how much opposition he had faced in the past, and how he had always prevailed. Most unusually, he volunteered that he had made “mistakes” in the past, mentioning the purge in the early 1930s, and the two biggest disasters on the Long March, Tucheng and Maotai, which he called “the real mistakes.” This was not, as it might seem, an apology, but a way of driving home the message: Nothing can topple me; none of these mistakes, however disastrous, made the slightest difference. So don’t even try.

But Mao’s main tactic was to appear conciliatory and willing to compromise. He allowed his own cult to be played down by letting the phrase “Mao Tse-tung Thought” be dropped from the Party Charter — although he made up for this with other forms of self-promotion, like having himself portrayed as the wise leader who had always rejected the cult. In the end he managed to turn the anti-personality cult tide to his advantage by having portraits of his colleagues taken down, and by getting rid of slogans like “Long live Commander-in-Chief Zhu De!” making himself the sole focus of worship.

Mao gave the impression that he was making other important concessions, not least by letting colleagues speak about the rule of law. Liu Shao-chi promised to stop massive killings and violence, and to set up a legal system: “We must … convince everyone … that as long as he does not violate the law, his citizen’s rights are guaranteed and he will not be violated …” Another report criticized “campaigns,” which were the essence of Mao’s rule. Mao had the last laugh, though. He let a criminal code be drafted, but then made sure it was never approved in his lifetime.

Mao’s most important concession was to relax the timetable for the Superpower Program. In the main report to the congress, he deleted his own pet slogan “More and Faster …,” and allowed the deadline of fifteen years to be replaced with “in a rather long time.” The report reprised Liu’s criticisms of over-hasty industrialization that “places too much burden on the people … and causes waste.” Mao endorsed lower levels of food requisitioning. The result was that in 1956 the average food allowance was 205 kg of grain (equivalent) — the highest amount there was ever to be under Mao. He accepted a further cut of 21 percent in investment in arms industries for 1957. As a result, 1957 was, like 1956, a relatively better year for ordinary people.

For Mao, however, these concessions were intolerable; they slowed down his Program. Within a year he found ways to roll them back and reassert his old master plan.

38. UNDERMINING KHRUSHCHEV (1956–59 AGE 62–65)

WITHIN MONTHS of denouncing Stalin, Khrushchev had run into trouble. In June 1956, protests erupted in Poland at a factory suitably named “the Stalin Works” in the city of Poznan, and more than fifty workers were killed. Wladyslaw Gomulka, a former Party leader who had been imprisoned under Stalin, returned to power, espousing a more independent relationship with Moscow. On 19 October the Russians told Mao that anti-Soviet feelings were running high in Poland, and that they were thinking of using force to keep control.