Did Mao Really Say This?

[orihara]

“He (Emperor Shih Huang) had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.”

I find this odd, because he himself was an intellectual and a teacher. So did he really say this, and if so, what was the background behind it?

[o well this is ok I guess]

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_10.htm
oh lol, it appears to be legit.

[motion denied]

It is also true in China. The hundred scholars expressing themselves in the time of the Warring States was dialectics. The classics of the feudal era were metaphysics. Now dialectics is being promoted.

The chairman, everybody.

[Atsumari]

Mao did not make it a secret that he held Qin Shi Huang in high esteem, but it should be noted that Mao himself was not much different than medieval emperors or modern monarchs whose populations were motivated by populism. The kind of populism I refer to is monarchism where the monarch states that if only those nobles or intellectuals could get out of the way, he could help everyone.

[Sabot Cat]

“He (Emperor Shih Huang) had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.”

I find this odd, because he himself was an intellectual and a teacher. So did he really say this, and if so, what was the background behind it?

The background was: "Our critics think we're dictatorial. Well, I say to that: yes, yes we are. Thanks for noticing."

[Creative Destruction]

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_10.htm
oh lol, it appears to be legit.

It appears he's referring to Confucian scholars, given the context of his speech. That's still not good, but the quote mined out of context makes it seem like he's for burying alive all scholars.

[Illegalitarian]

This is why Mao quotes aren't worth much of a damn, so many were tongue-in-cheek (he clearly did not have 46K intellectuals buried alive lmfao).


Not a big Mao fan or anything, but yeah... I think he was probably just making light of anti-rightest campaign efforts, which really did see many so-called "intellectuals" purged.

It's not simply intellectuals that Mao disliked, that is to day, anyone of high intellect, but rather, right-wing academic types, such as those who were big proponents of western liberal democracy ( a lot of those types were still around from the early days of the KMT).

Think bourgeois economists in America today spitting their cold logical tripe, with their deceptive language and terrible theories which are grounded in "logic" but are completely detached from practice, from humans and the human condition (how we act, what truly makes a better life for people and what people want etc)

Of course, he also killed a lot of people who merely criticized the party two in what was a blatant dirty trick (100 flowers campaign).

So yeah lesson here is Mao was an intense guy who jokes about some shit he probably shouldn't have.

[Illegalitarian]

Mao did not make it a secret that he held Qin Shi Huang in high esteem, but it should be noted that Mao himself was not much different than medieval emperors or modern monarchs whose populations were motivated by populism. The kind of populism I refer to is monarchism where the monarch states that if only those nobles or intellectuals could get out of the way, he could help everyone.

Comparisons made in such a manner are perhaps a bit unfair, I would say, since the nature of Mao's criticisms of these intellectuals wasn't really based on any sense of false populism, as much as it was the paranoia faced by many of the post-WWII newborn m-l staes, which was somewhat grounded in reality, if only to the degree that there actually were conspiracies against them.

Qin Shi Huang is a fair comparison for Mao, though: A visionary whose actual capabilities lagged far behind what he wanted to do, leading to several bad problems, on top of a "I need to hurry this along no matter the cost" mentality.

[John Nada]

This is why Mao quotes aren't worth much of a damn, so many were tongue-in-cheek (he clearly did not have 46K intellectuals buried alive lmfao).


Not a big Mao fan or anything, but yeah... I think he was probably just making light of anti-rightest campaign efforts, which really did see many so-called "intellectuals" purged.

It's not simply intellectuals that Mao disliked, that is to day, anyone of high intellect, but rather, right-wing academic types, such as those who were big proponents of western liberal democracy ( a lot of those types were still around from the early days of the KMT).I don't know for sure, but weren't scholars in China associated with the feudal bureaucracy and religious leaders? Also I read that four in Mandarin sounds like the word for death(Gang of Four), and 6 in Cantonese could mean flow or decline,(yeah here's that ever reliable Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture ). Kind of like how 2 sounds like 'to' or 'too', four sounds like 'for' and 666 and 13 are bad numbers. Could it be something lost in translation?
Think bourgeois economists in America today spitting their cold logical tripe, with their deceptive language and terrible theories which are grounded in "logic" but are completely detached from practice, from humans and the human condition (how we act, what truly makes a better life for people and what people want etc)

Of course, he also killed a lot of people who merely criticized the party two in what was a blatant dirty trick (100 flowers campaign).

So yeah lesson here is Mao was an intense guy who jokes about some shit he probably shouldn't have.

Mao's quotes are so misused, mistranslated, intentionally misunderstood, and taken out of context it's not even funny. All that questionable stuff often quoted seems like jokes, sarcasm, story telling, parables, proverbs, quirks in his Chinese dialect and rhetoric. Yet anti-socialist(who don't distinguish between different socialist tendencies) seem to be cherry-picking Mao's works using shitty scholarship. It's all over Wikipedia and in most the(very common) sources listed. I can't believe the media and academia eats up this shit about such an important but flawed figure(regardless of what you think of him).

But then again no body outside of a few rebel groups have any reason to try to objectively appraise him, and of course they're going to say,"Mao was the most BAMF M-L ever!" The Eastern Bloc hated him for pissing off Khrushchev, Hoxhist hate him for China's "Three Worlds Theory" and saying Stalin had some metaphysical beliefs, other socialist because he though Stalin was alright, capitalist for obvious reasons, and the Deng clique who rules his country now threw his family in prison. Guess the contradiction's overwhelmed his legacy :lol:

From reading the link, it does seem as though the rightist were actually fucking shit up. If you read stuff Deng Xiaoping wrote he seemed more drawn to the Leninist way of organizing and Chinese nationalism. Not really much of a Marxist, if at all. So there was a lot of right-wing nationalist in the party. It looks like the national/petty bourgeoisie and upper peasants might have been hoarding, speculating and oppressing the workers and poor peasants.

Also who's that "Comrade XXX" Mao criticizes?

[Illegalitarian]

Yeah it's kind of hard to argue that there was no threat of liberal bourgeois intellectuals or rightists within society when those types immediately took over once Mao kicked the bucket.

Though it all must have left some sort of positive impression on Chinese people. Most of the '89 protesters were socialists railing against privatization, and many of them still loyal to Mao.

Even today in China Mao is seen and used as a symbol of rebellion against the state, who ironically enough, still proclaims to adhere to Mao Zedong thought and hold him up as the moral and ideological foundation of China, despite his nation now looking like it was built from the ground-up by Chiang Kai-Shek.


Even Deng's big criticism of Mao was that he was 70% right and 30% bad. I'm not sure if goodness or badness can really be quantified as such, but that sounds pretty fair I think.. somewhere around there, at least.

[Creative Destruction]

It appears he's referring to Confucian scholars, given the context of his speech. That's still not good, but the quote mined out of context makes it seem like he's for burying alive all scholars.

i wanted to say that this distinction is probably important for accuracy's sake because, iirc, Mao's China valued teachers to some measure. it's not like Pol Pot, who was entirely insane and wanted to eradicate all "intelligentsia".

[Creative Destruction]

Also who's that "Comrade XXX" Mao criticizes?

At first, I thought this was just a general catch-all for all the representatives in the Congress. But looking at some of his other works and reading this one a bit closer, I'm not sure. I can't tell if this was just official redaction or just a generalized name for people.

[Illegalitarian]

Mao's China made unprecedented leaps in education, both in quality and access. To try and paint it as anti-intellectual would be pretty fallacious indeed.


The Khmer Rouge didn't even do this, really. Despite myths of people being snuffed out for wearing glasses, in reality it was pretty much literally anyone who resisted Year Zero in general. There were still academics and economists inspired by avant-garde French socialist experiments running things. In fact, the entire idea of burning down the old society in its entirety for the sake of a fresh new society came from the French revolution.

[Shin Honyong]

This is why Mao quotes aren't worth much of a damn, so many were tongue-in-cheek (he clearly did not have 46K intellectuals buried alive lmfao).

This. The fact that the quoted text notes that he was interrupted and there was laughter after that part should tell you something.

He isn't being literal here. The whole speech is about the importance of throwing out the traditional ideas and bringing in the new "correct" ones. His whole argument is that the revolution can't be half-assed. To reinforce this he references a famous quote by Emperor Qing that most Chinese would probably be familiar with in the over the top manner so people can understand and laugh at good ol Chairman Mao. Remember, Qing isn't exactly a popular figure in Chinese history and the official Chinese history of him at the time was still pretty negative so the audacity in that comment isn't as notable in western eyes as it was to a Chinese person in 1958.

[Sixiang]

Mao did not make it a secret that he held Qin Shi Huang in high esteem, but it should be noted that Mao himself was not much different than medieval emperors or modern monarchs whose populations were motivated by populism. The kind of populism I refer to is monarchism where the monarch states that if only those nobles or intellectuals could get out of the way, he could help everyone.
There were no nobles in 1950s China for Mao to even get rid of in the first place. And he didn't just want intellectuals to get out of his way, he, like most leaders of modern states, enlisted the help of intellectuals. He used big-name, sometimes Western-educated academics at China's major universities to support the new China and anti-traditionalism. He maintained close relationships with many academics.


Qin Shi Huang is a fair comparison for Mao, though: A visionary whose actual capabilities lagged far behind what he wanted to do, leading to several bad problems, on top of a "I need to hurry this along no matter the cost" mentality.
And yet Qin Shi Huangdi's reforms were maintained by the succeeding Han dynasty and all Chinese empires after him. It was under him that the imperial bureaucratic system that Marco Polo discovered was created. He eradicated the powers of the aristocracy in favor of the meritocratic bureaucracy to run the empire. On top of this, he set the standards of weight and measurement used throughout the rest of imperial Chinese history, and he divided China into the provincial system that we still see today. The Legalist mutual responsibility system was also used at various points throughout Chinese history. Jiang Jieshi even used it. In many ways, the kind of empire that the first emperor envisioned came true, just not under his family line.


I don't know for sure, but weren't scholars in China associated with the feudal bureaucracy and religious leaders? Also I read that four in Mandarin sounds like the word for death(Gang of Four), and 6 in Cantonese could mean flow or decline,(yeah here's that ever reliable Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture ). Kind of like how 2 sounds like 'to' or 'too', four sounds like 'for' and 666 and 13 are bad numbers. Could it be something lost in translation?
You are right that numbers hold a very important place in Chinese culture. It is even highly doubtful that the first emperor had 460 Confucian scholars buried alive. This story was not told until almost 200 years after it supposedly happened by Sima Qian, a Han dynasty court historian who had a personal vendetta against emperors known for cruel punishments. Qin Shi Huangdi actually enlisted Confucian scholars to support his empire. He kept on 70 Confucian scholars as official scholars to preserve and know the Confucian classics and to write Confucian-sounding praises of the first emperor's reign. In classical Chinese texts, numbers were usually not specific, but rather they pointed toward some sort of meaning. It is true that the Chinese words for "four" and "death" are both pronounced "si" but they have different tones. It is maybe possible that Sima Qian was pointing towards this, but there's no way to tell for certain. Especially since the Qin imperial library, which housed all of the official archives of the state, was burned to the ground in the Han takeover. So the sources from Qin Shi Huangdi's time are mostly lost to us (a few things have been uncovered in archaeological digs in the last century).


But then again no body outside of a few rebel groups have any reason to try to objectively appraise him, and of course they're going to say,"Mao was the most BAMF M-L ever!" The Eastern Bloc hated him for pissing off Khrushchev, Hoxhist hate him for China's "Three Worlds Theory" and saying Stalin had some metaphysical beliefs, other socialist because he though Stalin was alright, capitalist for obvious reasons, and the Deng clique who rules his country now threw his family in prison. Guess the contradiction's overwhelmed his legacy :lol:

Also who's that "Comrade XXX" Mao criticizes?
Actually there are several well-respected scholars in the West who say many positive things about Mao. Ross Terrill, a Harvard political science professor, wrote a biography of Mao and said that Mao was his "hero." He in many ways paints Mao as a hero, an epic figure. He calls him "the last titan of the 20th century."

Rebecca Karl at NYU, Maurice Meisner at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stuart Schram of the London School of Oriental and African Studies, Alexander V. Pantsov at Capital University in Ohio, and even Jonathan Spence at Yale University all wrote biographies of Mao that were not total demonizations of him. They do not take his quotes out of context. Karl and Meisner are leftist scholars themselves. They all have very positive things to say about Mao despite them being academics at big-name universities. Schram did by far the most extensive scholarship on translating Mao's writings and did his best to not take anything Mao said out of context. Fox News and History Channel treatments of Mao are usually utterly negative, but the scholarly community that actually is up to date on the research on him is in general agreement that this one-sided view of him is just plain wrong.


This. The fact that the quoted text notes that he was interrupted and there was laughter after that part should tell you something.

He isn't being literal here. The whole speech is about the importance of throwing out the traditional ideas and bringing in the new "correct" ones. His whole argument is that the revolution can't be half-assed. To reinforce this he references a famous quote by Emperor Qing that most Chinese would probably be familiar with in the over the top manner so people can understand and laugh at good ol Chairman Mao. Remember, Qing isn't exactly a popular figure in Chinese history and the official Chinese history of him at the time was still pretty negative so the audacity in that comment isn't as notable in western eyes as it was to a Chinese person in 1958.
Yes this absolutely. It should be mentioned, however, that Mao broke with tradition by viewing Qin Shi Huangdi more favorably than anyone else before him. During the Anti-Confucius Anti-Lin Biao campaign of 1973-1976, Mao was purposely compared to the first emperor in the media and history texts circulated across the country. This was not an accident. The 221 BCE unification and 1949 revolution constituted the two greatest revolutionary moments in Chinese history as far as totally restructuring the society and state. So Mao was not tapping into age-old criticisms of Qin Shi Huangdi, necessarily. He did talk very tongue-in-cheek at times, however.

[Illegalitarian]

I don't know a lot about Qin Shi Huangdi, what was he then, an anti-feudalist revolutionary (in the Marxist sense of the word)?


Also Karl's book is fantastic, if anyone is interested in reading about Mao, there you go. Very well balanced piece.


Who were the "intellectuals" targeted by the Cultural Revolution and demonized by Mao, exactly? All we ever hear is this broad "anti-intellectual" moniker, but what is the context of this?

Also what does it mean to be anti- or pro-Lin Biao? I've heard this term used a lot by Maoists, but I thought Lin Biao was just some sort of military figurehead and Mao's second who died in a plane accident, what did he contributed to Maoism?

[Sixiang]

I don't know a lot about Qin Shi Huangdi, what was he then, an anti-feudalist revolutionary (in the Marxist sense of the word)?
I think he was a revolutionary because under his rule, massive and long-lasting changes were made in society, governance, economy, and intellectual life. I also think he was anti-feudalist, but I would not say that he was trying to usher in some sort of proto-capitalism either. He abolished the feudal order established by the previous Zhou dynasty by stripping nobles of their land titles and political power. He replaced the feudal order with a centralized bureaucracy of administrators appointed by him. He was not really a proto-capitalist because he also despised merchants and banned commerce within the empire. Everyone had to be either a peasant, soldier, or bureaucrat. Merchants were traditionally viewed to be social parasites in China and commerce was believed to corrupt people morally. Qin Shi Huangdi and the legalists took this to the extreme of abolishing merchants as a class.


Also Karl's book is fantastic, if anyone is interested in reading about Mao, there you go. Very well balanced piece.
:thumbup1:


Who were the "intellectuals" targeted by the Cultural Revolution and demonized by Mao, exactly? All we ever hear is this broad "anti-intellectual" moniker, but what is the context of this?
I do not think Mao was anti-intellectual. Stuart Schram called him a "semi-intellectual." Mao was one of perhaps 1% of the entire Chinese population in the late 19th-early 20th century to even go to middle school, let alone college. He went to a teacher's college for 5 years and became a middle school principal. He spent a year or two working at Beijing University's library under Li Dazhao, the first person to translate Lenin into Chinese. While working there, Mao was exposed to Marxism and an intellectual environment that he had time joining. Many upper-class intellectuals looked down on Mao for his "country bumpkin" way of speaking and sloppy handwriting. But Mao was a very well read person. His interests shifted from academic works and philosophy to literature and poetry later in life. He really despised professional academics who looked down on non-educated people and thought they were smarter than everyone else. He thought these people had to be educated by the masses, that they had to learn what it was like to be poor and working with one's hands. This was why intellectuals were told to go "down to the countryside and up to the mountains" to learn from the masses.

As far as the Cultural Revolution, the education system hadn't really been reformed much since liberation and many academics from before 1949 remained in their positions in Chinese universities. When it came time to reform the education system, to bring in more students from working class and peasant backgrounds and to democratize the classrooms, many of these older academics were not comfortable with such changes. Some criticized or just failed to implement the party's directives about how the schools should be changed. The Cultural Revolution is usually credited with starting off with Wu Han's play "Hai Rui dismissed from office." Wu Han was a historian of the Ming dynasty who had been appointed mayor of Beijing. He was an academic in nationalist China and became a critic of Jiang Jieshi's regime. He traveled to Yan'an in 1948 or 1949 and met Mao, who told him that he needed to study Marxist historical materialism and apply it to his study of history. Wu took this seriously and did indeed rewrite Ming dynasty history to highlight the importance of peasant revolts. He also wrote this play about Hai Rui, a Ming dynasty official who criticized the emperor. Some, including Mao's wife, interpreted this play to be an attack on Mao. The newspapers then filled with articles criticizing not only Wu Han but other artists and intellectuals who wrote about traditional Chinese culture favorably. The Cultural Revolution involved rejections of traditional Chinese artforms in favor of supposedly "revolutionary" forms that often were just copying elements of Western art. On certain issues, the party took official stances and so intellectuals who held opposing views were also criticized.

Inside the schools themselves, older administrators and teachers were often removed from their posts and criticized by students and younger administrators and teachers. The entire campuses of Beijing's universities were turned into warzones by 1967 and Mao sent unarmed groups of soldiers and workers to stop the violence between student red guard groups. You can read an interesting case study of this in William Hinton's book, The Hundred Day War.


Also what does it mean to be anti- or pro-Lin Biao? I've heard this term used a lot by Maoists, but I thought Lin Biao was just some sort of military figurehead and Mao's second who died in a plane accident, what did he contributed to Maoism?
Yes he was the Minister of Defense and declared in 1970 to be the successor to Mao when the time comes. He was the one who organized Mao's quotes into the little red book. Originally that book was given to soldiers in the army. It was only later that other people in society were encouraged to read the little red book. He was known for sometimes overpraising Mao. After 1970, he wanted to re-establish the position of President of the PRC, which Mao held back in the 1950s but gave to Liu Shaoqi, who held it until he was deposed from power in 1966. Lin Biao said he wanted to re-establish it and give it to Mao, but Mao refused this suggestion. He did it 3 or 4 times and every time Mao opposed it. Mao later told Edgar Snow that he started to think Lin might want the position recreated so he could have it one day, that Lin was a bit too power-hungry.

The debate over Lin within Maoist groups is usually really a debate over Third-worldism. Third Worldists are pro-Lin Biao, thinking that he contributed something to Maoism, that the imperialist nations are incapable of having genuine socialist revolutions and so those have to happen in third world countries first. Lin said some things in speeches that pointed toward this but he never said himself that he was trying to create some new theory. Very few Maoists actually believe this anymore. The vast majority of the larger Maoist parties dismiss this Third Worldist approach and instead think that it is legitimate for communists in imperialist countries to try to struggle for revolution in their countries.

By the way, I really like your username. Very clever and creative.

[Illegalitarian]

Thank you very much!

I do have one question, though: Why did Lin want to do this, I thought Mao's position was already the most powerful?

[RedBlackStar]

“He (Emperor Shih Huang) had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.”

I find this odd, because he himself was an intellectual and a teacher. So did he really say this, and if so, what was the background behind it?

I know absolutely nothing about Mao, but I swear to god the man practically radiates banter.

[Sixiang]

Thank you very much!

I do have one question, though: Why did Lin want to do this, I thought Mao's position was already the most powerful?
No problem!

I don't know exactly why Lin wanted to do this. I don't think he ever wrote it down for us. Or if he did, we can't know because all of his personal documents were confiscated by the government and have not been released, or possibly burned up in the plane crash. The circumstances of his death are really a mystery. The Chinese government's official story is that he had plotted with his wife and son to kill Mao and take over in a coup. When his coup failed, he tried to flee the country. There are many holes in the story, however, and all kinds of contradictory alternate stories and evidence. You can read the wikipedia page on Lin Biao for a more thorough summary of all the different theories. I haven't looked too far into it and really don't have an opinion on it. It does seem strange to me, however, that Lin would really plot to have Mao killed. It makes no sense to me and I am suspicious of the official CCP story.

[Illegalitarian]

He died only a few years before Mao did, when the forces of reaction were well positioned for a full take over. It's no surprise to me that they would want to demonize him so as to perhaps not make a legend out of him, which could have strengthened the morale of the Maoist opposition enough to protect a rise to power of Mao's closest friends.

It's also possible that they bumped him off themselves to insure that there would be as few people around as possible to successfully step up and take power, too. The more old guard they got out of the picture, the better their nil chances of gaining a stronghold in Beijing when the time was right.

All sources say that Mao was extremely upset by this news, so I very highly doubt he had anything to do with it.

[Sixiang]

He died only a few years before Mao did, when the forces of reaction were well positioned for a full take over. It's no surprise to me that they would want to demonize him so as to perhaps not make a legend out of him, which could have strengthened the morale of the Maoist opposition enough to protect a rise to power of Mao's closest friends.

It's also possible that they bumped him off themselves to insure that there would be as few people around as possible to successfully step up and take power, too. The more old guard they got out of the picture, the better their nil chances of gaining a stronghold in Beijing when the time was right.

All sources say that Mao was extremely upset by this news, so I very highly doubt he had anything to do with it.

Yes I do not think that Mao was involved in plotting Lin's death at all. The plane crashed in Mongolia. Mongolian soldiers buried all of the dead. Most of the plane was destroyed and burnt up, but they found ID cards to identify some of them. Soviet authorities were allowed to review the forensics (including Brezhnev) and they concluded that the plane had about 30 minutes left of fuel in it. They figured that the plane must have been flying low to avoid radar detection and was not able to deploy their landing gear in time. It probably was just a huge accident.

[Tim Redd]

“He (Emperor Shih Huang) had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars.”

I find this odd, because he himself was an intellectual and a teacher. So did he really say this, and if so, what was the background behind it

If one reads many of Mao's writings, then you'll understand how Mao was dedicated to minimizing contradictions among the people, including intellectuals as a strata of the people.

Mao makes it clear in his writings that the revolutionary movement should unite all who can be united on any one issue, or area of opposition to the bourgeoisie.

From his writings, one can see the aims and nature of Mao as person, which included his rock hard solid support for ending all exploitation and oppression of the people in order to abolish classes.

Mao's whole essence of being was to carry out revolution for the people in order to free them from exploitation and oppression. And again that includes most intellectuals as supporters of revolution.

[Tim Redd]

I see how someone might creditably accuse someone of wanton disregard of someone's life, but to do so demands the accuser to actually make that point in a reasoned scientific argument. I'm in this thread for disabusing the readers and Mao haters of stories that fail to uphold the truth and righteousness of how Mao led the cultural revolutionary movement.

Mao waged struggle in the Cultural Revolution by uniting all who could be united to oppose the theory and actions of the bourgeoisie and their sycophants right in the state and the ruling party of China. The state and party of present day China of course is not communist or even socialist and needs to be overthrown by a real mass communist revolutionary movement and party.

Struggle against capitalist roaders in the state and party is one of the key essential strategic aims of Maoist revolutionary communists after they and the masses seize power in a communist/socialist revolution.

[contracycle]

I would suggest here that something that needs to be borne in mind is what terms like "scholar" mean in a Chinese context. It doesn't just mean smart, or learned, people, because those scholars had, through a millennium of Chinese history, also conducted priestly functions, and had been supported by the imperial state as a means of legitimation. They performed rituals, sacrifices, blessings, and astrological predictions.

So a better way to look at this might be a word like "cleric", and the reaction against "scholars" as analogous to the anti-clericism of the French Revolution - however educated those clerics might have been, they were recognised as agents of the ancien regime.