Mao: The Unknown Story

What the Poles wanted was more freedom, not more Stalinism, or more poverty. A vivid illustration of the yawning gap between Mao’s vision and Polish reality came when a group of Polish visitors told Mao that their fellow countrymen were unhappy with their low living standards, and that their Party felt it had to do something to meet its people’s wishes. Mao replied: “I do not believe the standard of living in Poland is too low. On the contrary, I feel that it is relatively very high: the Poles are eating more than two or three thousand calories every day, while [about 1,500] could be sufficient. If the people feel that there are too few consumer goods available, the [regime] should increase their propaganda efforts.” After Mao’s “monologue,” a Polish diplomat wrote, the Poles “realized that Chinese assistance could not be substantial or long-lasting because their program was even more ‘anti-people’ than the Soviet one.”

When Chou En-lai saw that it was unlikely he could line up the Poles to propose Mao as the head of the Communist camp, Mao turned at once to the other most anti-Moscow Communist country, Yugoslavia. An envoy already there in January 1957 was instantly instructed to request an ultra-private meeting with Tito, at which he asked the Yugoslav president to co-sponsor a world Communist summit with Peking, using the argument that the Soviet Party was in such disrepute that no one would listen to it. At that very moment, Mao was trashing Tito to his inner circle as an enemy — just as he trashed Gomulka. Mao’s cultivation of these two Communist countries was completely opportunistic, based solely on the fact that they were the most anti-Soviet. After listening to Mao’s pitch, Tito not only declined to co-sponsor such a conference, but would not even commit to attend it.

At the same time, Mao was trying again to weaken the Kremlin by getting the Russians to humiliate themselves. In Moscow in January 1957 Chou demanded that the Soviet leaders make groveling “open self-criticisms” and re-evaluate Stalin along Mao’s lines. The Russians bristled, and rebuffed him on both scores. Mao’s reaction was a rant to Chou, as he told his provincial chiefs: “I told Comrade En-lai on the phone that these people have been turned into cretins by their material gains, and the best way to deal with them is to give them a good round of stinking curses. What do they actually have? No more than 50 million tons of steel, 400 million tons of coal, and 80 million tons of oil … Big deal!” Mao was blaming his failure to supplant Khrushchev on China’s lack of economic muscle.

MAO HAD OTHER sources of frustration. One was the Middle East, where a major crisis erupted at the same time as Hungary, over the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalized in July 1956. On 29 October Israel attacked Egypt, as the spearhead of a secretly coordinated Israeli-Anglo-French invasion.

Mao was itching to act as Egypt’s protector and teacher. He staged mammoth demonstrations against the British and the French, involving nearly 100 million people. To a visitor from Franco’s Spain attending one in Peking, it was: “Worse than fascist meeting. There are leaders in all stands who start to cheer and everybody shout when they shout. These are not true demonstrators … very boring.” Mao dispensed advice to Egypt’s ambassador, General Hassan Ragab, on everything from how to handle the exiled King Farouk to how Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser could avoid assassination, urging the ambassador to “study the experience of China,” which was “very much worth studying.” Voicing barely veiled rivalry with Russia, Mao pressed aid on Ragab: “The Soviet Union will be doing all it can to help Egypt. China also would like to do our best to help Egypt, and our help does not have any strings attached. Whatever you need, just name it … Our aid to you does not have to be paid back … if you insist on paying back … then pay back in a hundred years.” China gave Nasser 20 million Swiss francs in cash, and rigged the bilateral trade balance heavily in Egypt’s favor.

Mao was so keen to play a role that on 3 November he sent Nasser a war plan. True to form, he offered cannon-fodder: 250,00 °Chinese volunteers. An offer Nasser did not take up — fortunately for the “volunteers,” but also for Mao, as China had no way of transporting this number of people to the Middle East.

Nasser paid scant attention. Nasser’s top adviser Mohamed Heikal told us that the president left Mao’s war plan at the bottom of his pile of correspondence. What Nasser really wanted was arms. He had decided to recognize Peking that spring so that China, which was outside the UN, could serve as a conduit for Russian arms in case there was a UN arms embargo.