mao zedong little red book

[man in the red suit]

has any one read the little red book by mao zedong?
Does anyone know what it is all about? I cant seem to find an english translated country. My friend tells me that it is just an anti-american book? is he right? i dont really believe him. Another thing, When Mao died in 1976 and deng xiaping took over, did china turn capitalist? it is just a rumor ive heard. Is China just socialist? what is going on over there? im very curious.
thanx

[vox]

The title of the Little Red Book is Quotations from Chariman Mao Tsetung and it's available online.

It's a collection of quotes, obviously, from various sources. It's interesting to read from an historical perspective. It shows Mao to be a pretty dogmantic Marxist, but also contains things like this:

"A Communist must never be opinionated or domineering, thinking that he is good in everything while others are good in nothing; he must never shut himself up in his little room, or brag and boast and lord it over others."

Or this:

"The organs of state must practise democratic centralism, they must rely on the masses and their personnel must serve the people."

There's also a fair amount of talk about being self-critical, always making sure that Communists serve the worker. We know, however, that this isn't really what happened in China.

vox

[Dan Majerle]

I love Mao's little red book, i think it's great. I just go "Selected Readings from the works of Mao Tse-Tung" so i'm looking forward to that. I highlighly recommend the book MITRD. After mao's death in 1976 China did practically turn capitalists through Deng however in theory they are still socialists. But only in theory. They are alot like America as they are a mix of a free market and socialist economy.

[Dirty Commie]

I have read the book several times and although it's not the original 3''x5'' version, I carry it everywhere I go. Every time I read it, I find a new way to understand the quotations.
Has any one heard of the one comparing Mao's qoutes to jesus's? I heard about it a while ago.

[lostsoul]

hmm..i really shouldn't be posting this. but i mirrored a section of marxist.org and here's a link on my server of mao's redbook.

http://lostsoul.zapto.org/people/mao/mao_w.../quotes_idx.htm (http://lostsoul.zapto.org/people/mao/mao_writtings/redbook/quotes_idx.htm)

its a good read..but so is all of his works(in my opinion). Right now i am reading, his book on gurillia warfare..Its not bad. I really enjoy his logic and method of reasoning. He had a really flexible mind.

here's a big list of his writtings:
http://lostsoul.zapto.org/people/mao/mao_w...ings/mao_sw.htm (http://lostsoul.zapto.org/people/mao/mao_writtings/mao_sw.htm)

[Pete]

Someone donated it to my mom's charity book to sale. Enough to say it has joined 'The Marxists', 'Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev' and a few other titles on books that I have 'liberated'

[Ian]

You stole from a Charity? Shame, Shame, Shame... :)

[Pete]

Hey there are over a thousand books that have been donated, I take the ones I like and volunteer for my mom, then slip a 20$ to her after the sale is over. I pay.

[lostsoul]

Hey, this may be the wrong place to ask this, but i have a question regarding mao's books.

The guy is dead, yet even his small books(like 100 pages) are like over 20 dollars. I don't understand why his books are so expensive, where does the money go? Its not like he's alive to recieve it.

(maybe i should start a new thread about this..)

[Dhul Fiqar]

If it's an officially sanctioned copy, it goes to the Beijing Foreign Language Press. They have have been the major supplier to the world since the early sixties when they had it translated.

The biggest markets were the former Eastern Bloc, and they mostly gave them away, so I suspect the trade has slowed down.

20 bucks is far too much, it's probably marked WAY up by your local bookstore. Around here it sells for like a dollar or something like that, and I know Mao's government did all it could to spread it around cheaply.


It's way more convenient to actually have the book, but the text from it is widely available on the internet. I don't think the Chinese government really gives a rat's ass where you get it, they spent billions through the years printing it and giving it away to people to publicise Maoism.

Here's the second edition:

http://art-bin.com/art/omaotoc.html


--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Oh, and for even more of his work, check out:

http://www.maoism.org/msw/mao_sw.htm

[Pete]

Dhul read the Dune Series.

I have a sanctioned bopy with one of those attached book mark thingies :D

[Dhul Fiqar]

Ehm... wait, I'm confused, how did we get from Mao to Frank Herbert? I'm sure they are good, but I'm confuzzled :)

--- G.

[lostsoul]

Quote: from Dhul Fiqar on 10:21 am on May 20, 2003
Oh, and for even more of his work, check out:

http://www.maoism.org/msw/mao_sw.htm


that was actually the site i mirrored, i love reading his work so i mirrored it so i can view the pages directly off my own server(in case that site goes down).

The book i bought on gurillia warfare(mao's book), cost 20 dollars and it was 100 pages(30 of it an introduction by some americian guy..who seemed to dislike mao, since he wanted his book to be used to study anti-gurillia tactics).

I was searching amazon.ca and found some selected writtings of mao book for 40. Your totally right, i also heard that the chinese goverment tries to promote mao around the world, thats why its so confusing why in china town i can get some of mao's books for so cheap but everywhere else its so expensive. But the book i have was compiled by an americian, and printed in the states on behalf of illinos univeristy.

and also, does anyone know if the selected writtings in the site are in a book? i searched for mao's selected writtings, but they were not the same. the ones i found is one book with selected writtings, that site has 10 volumes.

Thanks in advance

p.s. anyone intresting in reading an great book on china's communists, read "red star over china". Gives the read a good understanding of mao during his youth

[Son of Scargill]

I was given the Foriegn Languages Press version as a gift and was told that the english version was hard to get hold of even in China.However,the french version was readily available all over the place.
It's very interesting from a historical point of view as vox has said.The size and format of the book was great for reading at work though in the odd five minutes of down time I'd get.Read a quotation,then mull it over as you continued working.If the original idea was for getting your view across and educating the average worker/peasant,then it serves its purpose perfectly.