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Mao Tse-tung as Historian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Howard L. Boorman
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Extract

The label “history” is conventionally used with at least two distinct meanings: history-as-actuality and history-as-record. The events lying beneath the abstraction termed the social and economic history of the Roman empire constitute the former; Rostovtzeff's Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire is an example of the latter. Our concern in this paper is with “history” in still a third sense. When an individual, through either intent or accident, comes to occupy a dominant position in the history of a people, a country or an institution, his personal views on history and the historical process assume significance for the historian. The Peloponnesian War, Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, The History of the Russian Revolution, and The Second World War are important sources not only as records of past events but also because Thucydides, Julius Caesar, Trotsky and Churchill were themselves involved in the making of history. The recorded views of such event-making individuals are of intrinsic, albeit uneven, value because the men had personal knowledge of the events described—because they were, in short, actors before they were authors.

Type
Chinese Communist History and Historiography
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 28 , October 1966 , pp. 82 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1966

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References

1 See Theory and Practice in Historical Study: A Report of the Committee on Historiography, Social Science Research Council, Bulletin No. 54 (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1946), p. 133Google Scholar.

2 On the distinction between the eventful man and the event-making man, see Hook, Sidney, The Hero in History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), chapter 9, pp. 151–183Google Scholar.

3 This paper is devoted to discussion of Mao Tse-tung's general view of modern history, not of Peking's present line on the history of the Chinese Communist Party. A summation of the present Party line is given in the “Resolution on Some Questions in the History of Our Party,” adopted by the enlarged seventh plenum of the sixth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on April 20, 1945. For the Chinese text, see Mao Tse-tung Hsuan-chi (Peking: People's Publishing House, 1953), III, pp. 955–1002Google Scholar; for the English, see Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1956), IV, pp. 171–218Google Scholar. See also the review article by Boorman, Howard L., “From Shanghai to Peking: the Politics of a Revolution,” Journal of Asian Studies, XXIII, No. 1 (11 1963), pp. 113–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See, for example, the major speech by Yang, Chou, then deputy director of the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, The Fighting Task Confronting Workers in Philosophy and the Social Sciences (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), especially pages 53–68Google Scholar. Chou's speech was given on October 26, 1963, at the fourth enlarged session of the committee of the department of philosophy and social science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the national organisation sponsoring advanced research in the People's Republic of China.

5 Carr, Edward Hallett, What Is History? The George Macauley Trevelyan Lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge, 01–03 1961 (New York: Knopf 1963), p. 54Google ScholarPubMed.

6 The most recent and informed biography of Mao's political career is Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Pelican Original, 1966)Google ScholarPubMed. Other relevant materials include Ch'en, Jerome, Mao and the Chinese Revolution (London: Oxford Un. Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Cohen, Arthur A., The Communism of Mao Tse-tung (Chicago: Un. of Chicago Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Schram, Stuart R., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1963)Google Scholar; Boorman, Howard L., “Mao Tse- tung: The Lacquered Image,” The China Quarterly, No. 16 (10–12 1963), pp. 1–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the symposium “What Is Maoism?” in Problems of Com- munism, XV, No. 5 (09–10 1966), pp. 1–30Google Scholar, which includes papers by Schram and Cohen, commentaries, and concluding remarks.

7 The definitive discussion of the subject is Tse-tsung, Chow, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard Un Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

8 Chi-ming, Tung, An Outline History of China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), p. 316Google Scholar.

9 For discussion of Mao as a Hunanese, see Boorman, Howard L., “Ma o Tse-tung at Seventy: an American Dilemma,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, XL, No. 2 (Spring 1964), pp. 182–200Google Scholar.

10 The most useful account of that period is contained in Jui, Li, Mao Jse-tung T'ungchih te Ch'u-ch'i Ko-ming Huo-tung (Comrade Mao Tse-tung's Early Revolutionary Activities) (Peking: China Youth Publishing House, 1957)Google Scholar.

11 A reprint of the Tzu-chih t'ung-chien was published at Peking in 1956 (Ku-chi Ch'u-pan She, 10 volumes).

12 See the biography of Wang Fu-chih by Ssu-ho, Ch'i in Hummel, Arthur W. (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, pp. 817–819Google Scholar. Brief summaries of Wang's philosophical views are given in Wm. Bary, Theodore de et al. , Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York: Columbia Un. Press, 1960), pp. 597–606Google Scholar; and Chan, Wing-tsit, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Un. Press, 1963), pp. 692–702Google Scholar. Gray, J. deals with Wang's historical views in his chapter, “Historical Writing in Twentieth-century China: Notes on its Background and Development,” in Beasley, W. G. and Pulleyblank, E. G., Historians of China and Japan (London: Oxford Un. Press, 1961), pp. 193–197Google Scholar.

13 Wang Fu-chih's collected works, the Ch'uan-shan i-shu, were printed at Changsha in 1840–42 and reprinted at Nanking under the auspices of Tseng Kuo-fan, the Hunanese soldier-statesman, in 1864–65.

14 See Li Jui, note 10 above, pp. 29–30.

15 See the biography of T'an Ssu-t'ung by Ssu-yii, Teng in Hummel, Arthur W. (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, II, pp. 702–705Google Scholar. Perhaps the earliest biography of T'an is that by Ch'i-ch'ao, Liang, “T'an Ssu-t'ung chuan,” still very useful for an account of his participation in the 1898 reform movement in Yin ping shlh ho-chi, chuan-chi, I, pp. 106–112Google Scholar. The article by Shang-ssu, Ts'ai, “T'an Ssut'ung hsueh-shu ssu-hsiang t'i-yao,” in Chung-kuo Chien-she (China Reconstructs), IV, No. 2 (05 1947), pp. 49–53Google Scholar, is also useful. Recent materials on T'an published at Peking include Shang-ssu, Chiang (ed.), T'an Ssu-t'ung Ch'uan-chl (Complete Works of T'an Ssu-t'ung) (Peking: New China Bookstore, 1954)Google Scholar and a chronological biography by T'ing-fu, Yang, T'an Ssu-t'ung Nien-p'u (Peking: People's Publishing House, 1957)Google Scholar. Nathan Talbott, M. has prepared a doctoral dissertation on the subject at the University of Washington, Intellectual Origins and Aspects of Political Thought in the Jen-hsueh of T'an Ssu-t'ung, Martyr of the 1898 Reform (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1956)Google Scholar. Oka, Takashi has written on “The Philosophy of T'an Ssu-t'ung,” Harvard University, East Asian Regional Studies Seminar, Papers on China, IX (08 1955), pp. 1–47Google Scholar.

16 See Boorman, Howard L., “The Literary World of Mao Tse-tung,” The China Quarterly, No. 13 (01–03 1963), pp. 15–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 A bibliography of basic materials in Chinese and Western languages dealing with Hsun, Lu is given in Hsia, C. T., A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 1917–1957 (New Haven: Yale Un. Press, 1961), pp. 550–552Google Scholar.

18 Selected Works of Lu Hsun (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), I, pp. 8–21Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., pp. 76–135.

20 See Mills, Harriet C., “Lu Hsun and the Communist Party,” The China Quarterly, No. 4 (10–12 1960), pp. 17–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 See the discussion of intellectual generations in twentieth-century China by Schwartz, Benjamin, “The Intelligentsia in Communist China: A Tentative Comparison,” Daedalus (Summer 1960), especially pp. 612–621Google Scholar.

22 See Meisner, Maurice, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, scheduled for publication by the Harvard Un. PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 See Whiting, Allen S., Soviet Policies in China, 1917–1924 (New York: Columbia Un. Press, 1954), chapter 2, pp. 24–41Google Scholar, and Chow Tse-tsung, see note 7, pp. 209–214. The Chinese text of the declaration appeared in Hsin ch'ing-nien (New Youth), VII, No. 6, 05 1, 1920, appendix, pp. 1–3Google Scholar.

24 Ch'en Po-ta, Chou Yang, and Hu Ch'iao-mu first appeared in Mao's entourage during the early wartime period at Yenan.

25 The following statements of Mao Tse-tung are useful in studying his views on history:

(1) “ The “Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War,” section on “Study.” Delivered at the sixth plenum of the sixth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, October 1938.

(2) “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party.” December 1939. Mao revised the first section, on Chinese society, in this report, and wrote the second section, on the Chinese revolution.

(3) “On New Democracy.” January 1940.

(4) “On Coalition Government.” Political report at the Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, April 24, 1945.

(5) “How Yu Kung Moved the Mountains.” Concluding speech, Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, June 11, 1945.

(6) “On the People's Democratic Dictatorship.” Essay to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, June 30, 1949.

(7) Editorials on the United States White Paper, United States Relations with China, issued by the Department of State on August 5, 1949. Written by Mao Tse-tung for the Hsinhua News Agency and published at Peking between August 14 and September 16, 1949.

English translations of these documents appear in The Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (hereafter cited as Selected Works); the original Chinese texts may be found in Mao Tse-tung Hsuan-chi (hereafter cited as Hsuan-chi). The editions used are indicated below, with documents numbered as above:

English translations (London: Lawrence & Wishart):

(1) II (1954), pp. 258–261;

(2) III (1954), pp. 72–101;

(3) III, pp. 106–156;

(4) IV (1956), pp. 244–315;

(5) IV, pp. 316–318;

(6) IV (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), pp. 411–424;

(7) IV (Peking), pp. 425–459.

Chinese originals (Peking: Jen-min Ch'u-pan She):

(1) II (1952), pp. 521–523;

(2) II, pp. 615–650;

(3) II, pp. 655–704;

(4) III (1953), pp. 1029–1100;

(5) III, pp. 1101–1104;

(6) IV (1960), pp. 1473–1486;

(7) IV, pp. 1487–1520.

A useful selection of excerpts from Mao's writings dealing with history was compiled by the Honan branch of the China Historical Society and published in Shihhsueh yueh-k'an (Shixue Yuekari). Entitled “Chairman Mao on Historiography,” this selection appeared in two consecutive issues of Shixue Yuekan, No. 1 (01 1959), pp. 1–36Google Scholar, and No. 2 (February 1959), pp. 1–41. It is divided into five sections: principles of historiography, Chinese society and the Chinese revolution, historical events and historical personalities, war, and cultural problems.

26 The sixth (enlarged) plenum of the sixth Central Committee, late October-early November 1938.

27 Selected Works, II, pp. 259–260.

28 Ibid., Ill, pp. 72–73.

29 Ibid., Ill, p. 76.

30 In the original (1939) text of “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,” Mao laid emphasis on the “stagnation” of Chinese society during the so-called feudal era. The later, bowdlerised version, which is now official, modified that position and inserted new sentences to state that China, as it developed a commodity economy, bore within itself the embryo of capitalism and would have turned into a capitalist society even if there had been no intrusion of outside imperialism. For full discussion of the point, see Feuerwerker, Albert, “Chinese Modern Economic History in Communist Chinese Historiography,” The China Quarterly, No. 22 (04–06 1965), p. 44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 An official Chinese Communist summary is given by Sheng, Hu, Imperialism and Chinese Politics (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955)Google Scholar.

32 Selected Works, III, p. 123.

33 ibid., III, p. 110.

34 For a penetrating study of Yen Fu, see Schwartz, Benjamin, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Although it would be deceptive to suggest any causal relationship, it is noteworthy that two qualities which Yen Fu found at the heart of the modern Western ethos—sheer energy, and the public spirit which disciplines energy to socially constructive ends— are now, in a perverse way, the very qualities which some Western observers have found most dramatic in post-1949 China.

35 Selected Works, IV (Peking), pp. 412–413Google Scholar.

36 See Tse-tung, Mao, “In Commemoration of Dr. Sun Yat-sen,” Dr. Sun Yat-sen: Commemorative Articles and Speeches (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957), p. 10Google Scholar. References to Sun Yat-sen and to his Three People's Principles are scattered throughout Mao's writings.

37 For a detailed analysis, see Thomas, S. B., The Doctrine and Strategy of the Chinese Communist Party: Domestic Aspects, 1945–1958, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1964, chapters 1–4Google Scholar.

38 See Zagoria, Donald S., “Some Comparisons between the Russian and Chinese Models,” in Bamett, A. Doak (ed.), Communist Strategies in Asia (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 11–33Google Scholar.

39 See Ting-yi, Lu, “The World Significance of the Chinese Revolution,” 07 1, 1951, reproduced in Current Background (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 89Google Scholar, 96 July 5, 1951. The same theme is stressed in Kan-chih, Ho, A History of the Modem Chinese Revolution (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), pp. 535–536Google Scholar:

The victory of the Chinese people's revolution and the establishment of the People's Republic of China brought about a radical change in the history of China. It was the greatest event in world history since the October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and the victory of the anti-fascist war in 1945. The victory of the Chinese people's democratic revolution had a great world significance in that it extended and deepened the great influence exercised by the October Revolution upon all mankind.

40 Peking's pronouncements affecting Western as well as Asian communism began with two major statements in 1956: On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (April 5, 1956) and More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (December 29, 1956). Six years later, Peking fired another blast, The Differences between Comrade Togliatti and Us (December 31, 1962). Since the end of 1962, Peking's cogently argued summations of the long-range goals of the Chinese Communist leadership under Mao Tse-tung have appeared in a steady stream, highlighted by the massive open letter from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (June 14, 1963); the comments in On Khrushchev's Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World (July 14, 1964); and the definitive projection of Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary strategy on a global basis by Lin Piao (September 3, 1965). Peking's major doctrinal statements of the past decade have usually been credited to the editorial departments of the People's Daily (Jen-min Jih-pao) and Red Flag (Hung Ch'i) and have been released simultaneously in Chinese and in English for world distribution.

41 Western discussion of the Sino-Soviet dispute has grown rapidly in recent years, particularly with the development of the study of international communist affairs as a specialised academic sub-discipline in the United States. A recent summary is given by Griffith, William E., “Sino-Soviet Relations, 1964–1965,” The China Quarterly, No. 25 (01–03, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The following book-length studies published since 1960 are pertinent, although none has been written from the viewpoint of the Chinese Communist crater looking outwards: Brzezinski, Zbigniew K., The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (New York: Praeger, 2nd ed., 1961)Google Scholar; Alexander, Dallin (ed.), Diversity in International Communism: A Documentary Record, 1961–1963 (New York: Columbia Un. Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Floyd, David, Mao against Khrushchev: A Short History of the Sino-Soviet Conflict (New York: Praeger, 1963)Google Scholar; Griffith, William E., The Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Hudson, G. F., Lowenthal, Richard, and MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Sino-Soviet Dispute (New York: Praeger, 1961)Google Scholar; Walter, Lacquer, and Labedz, Leopold (eds.), Polycentrism: the New Factor in International Communism (New York: Praeger, 1962)Google Scholar; Kurt, London (ed.), Unity and Contradiction: Major Aspects of Sino-Soviet Relations (New York: Praeger, 1962)Google Scholar; Lowenthal, Richard, World Communism: the Disintegration of A Secular Faith (London: Oxford Un. Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Mehnert, Klaus, Peking and Moscow (New York: Putnam's, 1963)Google Scholar; Zagoria, Donald S., The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961 (Princeton: Princeton Un. Press, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Donald S., Zagoria (ed.), “Communist China and the Soviet Bloc,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 349, 09 1963Google Scholar.

Although not specifically concerned with the Sino-Soviet conflict, Morris, Bernard S., International Communism and American Policy (New York: Atherton Press, 1966)Google Scholar, offers a perceptive analysis of the present state of the international communist movement.

42 See Tang, Tsou and Halperin, Morton H., “ Mao Tse-tung's Revolutionary Strategy and Peking's International Behavior,” American Political Science Review, LIX, No. 1 (03 1965), pp. 80–99Google Scholar.

43 See Schlesinger, Arthur Jr, “The Historian and History,” Foreign Affairs, XLI, No. 3 (04 1963), pp. 491–497CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 See Schram, note 6 above, pp. 103 et seq.

45 Liu Chih-chi (661–721) is the author of the Shih-t'ung (Generalities on History, completed in 710), the first formal treatise on historical methodology in China. For Ernest Nagel's views, see his chapter, “Problems in the Logic of Historical Inquiry,” The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961), pp. 547–606Google Scholar.

46 See the comments on ideology and history in Communist China by Fairbank, John K., The United States and China (Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press, 2nd ed., 1958), pp. 303–306Google Scholar.

47 The point is made, for example, in Wm. Theodore de Bary et al., note 12 above, pp. 858–861.

48 Pulleyblank, E. G. has discussed Chinese historical writing in Beasley, and Pulley-blank, , op. cit. (note 12 above), pp. 1–9Google Scholar, and the historiographical tradition in Dawson, Raymond (ed.), The Legacy of China (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 143–164Google Scholar. Other dimensions of the topic are discussed by Gardner, Charles S. in Traditional Chinese Historiography (Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press, 1938Google Scholar; second edition with additions and corrections by L. S. Yang, 1961) and by Wright, Arthur F., “The Study of Chinese Civilization,” Journal of the History of Ideas, XXI (1960), pp. 233–255CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “On the Uses of Generalization in the Study of Chinese History,” in Gottschalk, Louis (ed.), Generalization in the Writing of History (Chicago: Un. of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 36–58Google Scholar. See also Meskill, John (ed.), The Pattern of Chinese History: Cycles, Development, or Stagnation? (Boston: D. C. Heath, Problems in Asian Civilisation Series, 1965)Google Scholar.

49 For general discussion of the problem, see the trilogy by Levenson, Joseph R., Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, especially III, The Problem of Historical Significance (Berkeley: Un. of California Press, 1965)Google Scholar. See also Levenson's review article, “Ideas of China,” The Times Literary Supplement, 07 28, 1966, p. 691Google ScholarPubMed. Other views are offered by Mote, Frederick W., “The Communist Chinese Puzzle,” University, A Princeton Magazine, No. 19 (Winter 1963–1964), pp. 14–20Google Scholar; Franke, Wolfgang, “The Role of Tradition in Present-Day China,” Modern World, III, 1963–1964, edited by DrHildebrandt, Walter, Vlotho/Weser, West Germany, pp. 75–92Google Scholar; and Houn, Franklin W., “The Communist Monolith versus the Chinese Tradition,” Orbis, VIII, No. 4 (Winter 1965), pp. 894–921Google Scholar.

50 Variant interpretations of the contemporary Chinese political puzzle are given by Barnett, A. Doak, China After Mao (Princeton: Princeton Un. Press, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boorman, Howard L., “Sources of Chinese Communist Conduct,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, XLII, No. 4 (Autumn 1966), pp. 512–526Google Scholar; Chu-yuan, Cheng, “Power Struggle in Red China,” Asian Survey, VI, No. 9 (09 1966), pp. 469–483Google Scholar; Lewis, John Wilson, Communist China: Crisis and Change (New York: Foreign Policy Association, Headline Series, No. 179, 10 1966)Google Scholar; MacFarquhar, Roderick, “Mao's Last Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, XLV, No. 1 (10 1966), pp. 112— 124Google Scholar; and Schurmann, Franz, “What Is Happening in China?” The New York Review of Books, XX (10 1966), pp. 18–25Google Scholar.

51 This view has been suggested by Jerome Ch'ên, note 6 above, pp. 7–8. See also Schwartz, Benjamin, “Modernization and the Maoist Vision: Some Reflections on Chinese Communist Goals,” The China Quarterly, No. 21 (01–03 1965) pp. 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 See Morgenthau, Hans J., The Purpose of American Politics (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), pp. 318–319Google Scholar.

53 See Schram, Stuart R., “Chinese and Leninist Components in the Personality of Mao Tse-tung,” Asian Survey, III, No. 6 (06 1963), pp. 259–273Google Scholar.

54 SeeWolfe, Bertram D., “Leon Trotsky as Historian,” Slavic Review, XX, No. 3 (10 1961), pp. 495–502Google Scholar.