Mao

[Kamerat Voldstad]

What's the bestbiography on Mao? I want an objective, fact stating, but questionasking biography - not one claiming he was a hero, not one claiming he was a sadist.

[Comrade Marcel]

Well, you should probably read more than one. I would also suggest reading up on Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought as opposed to just focusing on "good or evil" type of critiques.

For example, read Hoxha's criticisms of Mao; read the polemics of China with the USSR (which Krushecov started, and IMO lost).

To find pro-Mao stuff, find a bio of him published in China before he died. If not, after he died will suffice... Or try Maoist publishers / organizations like RCP, MIM or a party from the Philippines, India or Nepal (if you can get your hands on it).

There is also a number of western writers that were pro-Mao, like William Hinton, anna-Louise Strong and Edgar Snow.

For bourgeois shit which claims to be "unbiased" (there is no such thing) they will always be anti-Mao and anti-communist, with very few exceptions. These books are never hard to find. Of course, there will be some worth while facts in them, so it's never entirely useless to read them. Just make sure you learn how to weed out interpretation and opinion from fact.

Mao: A Life by Philip Short is about 800 pages and probably full of shit, but I have never read it (just own it).

[Janus]

There's really no best biography on Mao.

The Philip Short one is all right in that it just pieces his life together pretty well. Then you get to the Jung Chang stuff where unobjective is truly an understatement.

There's also the biography of Mao by his personal physician that you should probably check out as well.

There are also other sources as well if you can read Chinese.