by Jung Chang
But around the time the Communists took power, serious disagreements emerged between the two about whether to give priority to becoming a military superpower via a forced march, or to improving living standards. Mao constantly mocked Liu’s espousal of the latter, retorting: “ ‘Oh, peasants’ lives are so hard’—the end of the world! I have never thought so.”
While Stalin was still alive, Mao held his fire so as not to give the Master any pretext to muscle in and sabotage him. Stalin had been trying to undermine Mao by showering attention on Liu during Liu’s visits to Russia; and, not least, by taking the unprecedented step of having Pravda call Liu “the General Secretary” of the CCP.
As soon as Mao learned that Stalin was dying, at the beginning of March 1953, he leaped into action. First he sent out signals that Liu might be removed. At the time, Liu was in the hospital, having had an appendectomy in late February. Mao made sure he stayed there, even going as far as blocking the news of Stalin’s death from him. Mao went to the Soviet embassy twice in connection with Stalin’s illness and death, both times accompanied by other top leaders, but not Liu, although Liu was well enough to move around. When People’s Daily published a cable of good wishes for Stalin from the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association, the message was not signed by Liu, who was president of the Association, but by a subordinate, which was extraordinary in terms of protocol. And Liu was excluded from the memorial ceremony on Tiananmen Square.
In May Mao sent Liu a sharp, indeed menacing, letter saying: “all documents and telegrams issued in the name of the Center can only be issued after I have seen them. Otherwise, they are invalid [Mao’s emphasis]. Be careful.” Another told Liu (and Chou and army chief Peng) to “check all telegrams and documents issued in the name of the Center or the Military Council … to see whether there are any … that have not been seen by me … In the past, several decisions … have been issued unauthorized, without me having seen them. This is intolerably wrong, and is a sabotage of rules …” These were very strong words indeed, and they were designed to make Liu sweat all the more.
Next came a direct and open attack on Liu to a small but crucial audience. On 15 June, when the Politburo gathered to hear Mao announce his industrialization program, Mao sharply condemned Liu, calling him “right-wing.” Even though he did not name Liu, every listener knew whom he was driving at. Mao had taken precautions for the most unlikely eventuality of Liu using the Praetorian Guard, which also guarded Liu, to fight back. He had had a hush-hush investigation conducted beforehand to gauge individual members’ relationships with Liu. On the day of the meeting, some of the guards were rounded up and transferred out of Peking.
Over the following months, Mao denounced Liu by proxy to ever larger audiences, criticizing key Liu protégés like finance minister Bo Yi-bo, who had devised a tax system that would not produce anything like the revenue that Mao’s program demanded. Then in September Mao handpicked a lower-rank official to insinuate to a Party conference that Liu and his protégés had suspect pasts, and could be enemy agents. This was a frightening accusation. Liu was in danger of losing far more than just his job.
Mao let Liu stew for months, and then on 24 December 1953 he suddenly announced to the Politburo that he was going away on holiday, and was appointing Liu to stand in for him, which meant that Liu was still No. 2. The psychological effect of being thus pulled back from the precipice was considerable, and Liu caved in to Mao’s demands that he recant his old views to his top colleagues, which he did, groveling for three days and nights non-stop. Mao had what he wanted: a hyper-intimidated Liu.
MAO HAD BEEN threatening to replace Liu with another man called Gao Gang, the head of Manchuria. Gao was a hard-liner and supported Mao’s Superpower Program 100 percent. He had been the most vocal critic of Liu’s views in the top circle. Mao showed that he liked Gao and disliked Liu, and hinted to Gao that he was considering giving him Liu’s job. Gao talked to other top people about what Mao had said, and played the key role in attacking Liu. Many in the inner circle assumed that Gao was about to take Liu’s place.
Then, out of the blue, Mao reinstated Liu — and purged Gao, who was charged with “plotting to split the Party in order to usurp the power of the Party and the state.” This was the first top-level purge since the regime had come to power, and it spread an atmosphere of disquiet and dread. When the Dalai Lama arrived in Peking just after Gao was condemned, his entourage immediately alerted him to the purge as an ill omen. It was the first topic the Dalai Lama himself wanted to discuss with us when we interviewed him forty-five years later.
The real reason for the purge involved Soviet Russia. As boss of Manchuria, Gao had had a lot to do with the Russians, and he had shot his mouth off to them, even telling Stalin’s liaison Kovalev about disagreements in the Politburo, where he claimed that Liu headed a “pro-American faction.” Mao got to know about this when he was in Moscow in 1949, when Stalin gave him a report by Kovalev, partly based on talks with Gao. Gao told other Russians that Liu was too soft on the bourgeoisie. He complained about Chou, too, telling the Russians that he had had a “serious clash” with Chou over the Korean War in the Politburo.
That Gao was a talker had been noticed by a British couple in Yenan a decade before. Gao, they wrote, was “perhaps the most indiscreet of all the Communists whom we interviewed.” They must have been quite struck, as Gao was then a complete unknown.
For Mao, to have underlings talking about the inner workings of his regime to any outsider was an absolute taboo. By purging Gao he wanted to send a message: you can never be too tight-lipped, even — and especially — with the Russians. As the Superpower Program depended overwhelmingly on the Soviet Union, there was going to be a lot of contact with Russians. Mao feared that fraternization might lead to a loosening of his grip, and conceivably threaten his power. On this score, Mao never took the slightest chance. His vigilance in anticipating potential threats was the main reason he died in his bed. Mao could not ban all contacts with Russians, so he moved to put an invisible barrier between his men and “the brothers.” Gao provided a perfect vehicle for warning his underlings: Don’t get too fraternal with the Russians!
Soon, Mao used the Gao case explicitly to order his top echelon to disclose any relationships with any Russians, what he termed “illicit contacts with foreign countries”:
Do we have such people in China, who give information to foreigners behind the back of the Centre [i.e., me]? I think there are — Gao Gang for one … I hope those comrades will disgorge totally … Everything should go through the Centre [me again]. As for information, don’t pass it … Those who have passed information, own up and you won’t be pursued. If you don’t, we’ll check, and we will find out. You will be in trouble.
Mao did not define what counted as information, so the rule of thumb was simply not to talk to foreigners about anything.
Mao designated Chou En-lai chief “prosecutor” against Gao, while he absented himself. At the meeting in February 1954 when Chou delivered his onslaught on Gao (who was present), tea mugs were, unusually, filled beforehand, to prevent servants eavesdropping. But as the leaders were unable to proceed without more hot water, a tea boy was allowed in. He was stunned to see the usually suave Chou transformed, contorted into a picture of ferocity, a side that the outside world never got to see. Chou, the old assassin, had taken the precaution of getting two trusted subordinates to bring along pistols, something normally absolutely unthinkable at top-level meetings.
Gao was beside himself with shock about how Mao had set him up, and he tried to electrocute himself, unsuccessfully, on 17 February. For this he was forced to apologize, but his apology was rejected with the Party’s customary pitilessness; this act of despair was branded “an out-and-out traitor’s action against the Party.” He was kept under house arrest, and finally succeeded in ending his life six months later, after accumulating enough sleeping pills to do the trick.
In the Communist world a conspiracy was always preferred to a lone schemer. To
make up a “conspiracy,” Mao picked on the head of the Organization Department, Rao Shu-shi, who was accused of forming an “anti-Party alliance” with Gao, although the two were not particularly close. Rao had been the head of the CCP intelligence network in America, inter alia, and this was very possibly why Mao wanted him behind bars, as Mao was gearing up for a purge in his intelligence system. Rao was arrested, and died in prison twenty years later, in March 1975.
ON 26 DECEMBER 1953, having lit the fuse for Gao’s demise, Mao merrily celebrated his sixtieth birthday with his staff, drinking more wine than usual, even eating peaches, a symbol of longevity, though normally he did not like fruit. During the meal he hummed along to records of Peking opera and beat time on his thigh. Stalin had died, and Mao had successfully completed two maneuvers that were key for his Superpower Program: hammering his chief executive, Liu, into shape; and inoculating his top subordinates against any possible Russian contagion that might endanger his power.
Next day, when he arrived in picturesque lakeside Hangzhou, near Shanghai, he was in such good spirits that he could hardly wait to settle in before he ordered a game of mah-jong. Mao had been in Hangzhou thirty-two years before, in summer 1921, after the 1st Congress of the Communist Party. Then he had been a hard-up provincial teacher travelling on a Russian allowance. Now he was the master of China. His coming had been suitably prepared. A famous turn-of-the-century estate called Water and Bamboo had been picked for him. It was adorned with ponds and bamboo groves, and vines and palm trees, and enjoyed a panoramic view over the Western Lake. Villas next to it, and the hills behind it, were all incorporated into a single enormous estate, covering 36 hectares. The hill behind was hollowed out to provide a nuclear shelter. Mao stayed in an exquisite building, combining classical Chinese and exotic foreign styles, with pillars, doors and decorations which had been lovingly shipped in piece by piece by the original owner. But shortly afterwards, Mao had it torn down and replaced with his usual nondescript identikit structure. The creaking of the old timber had rattled his nerves with thoughts about assassins. He only felt safe in a reinforced concrete bunker.
Mao fell in love with the view. Every day, even in drizzle, he climbed the nearby peaks, which were specially cordoned off for him. He lingered over plum blossoms, sniffing at the petals. He chatted and joked with his staff. His mood was captured by his photographer, in a picture of a beaming plump-cheeked Mao, bathed in sunshine.
Soon the biggest snowfall in decades descended. Mao got up at the, for him, outlandish hour of 7:00 AM, and stood transfixed by the snow-clad southern garden. He then walked along a path blanketed with snow, which he ordered left unswept, to marvel at the lake in white. He tinkered with a poem.
Spring came, alternating between misty drizzle and dazzling sunshine, each day unfolding its masses of blossoms. During one pleasure trip, his female photographer, Hou Bo, gathered a bunch of wildflowers and presented them to Mao. Nobody seemed to know what the flower was called, so Mao said: Let’s name it the Hou Bo Flower.
Mao fancied a visit to the home of his favorite tea, Dragon Well village, which was nearby. The peasants were duly removed “for a mass meeting”—in fact for his security. But occasional surprise drop-ins were deemed safe enough, and so, on another occasion, Mao called in on one peasant house. The couple could not understand a word of his Hunan dialect, nor he theirs. Curious villagers started to converge, so Mao’s guards whisked him away.
On one excursion to the top of a hill, Mao saw a thatched hut on fire in the distance. The inhabitants were standing outside, helpless as the flames swallowed their home. According to Mao’s photographer, Mao “turned to me with a glance, and said coolly: ‘Good fire. It’s good to burn down, good to burn down!’ ”
The photographer was astonished. Sensing this, Mao said:” ‘Without the fire, they will have to go on living in a thatched hut.’
“ ‘But now it’s burnt down, where are they going to live?…’
“He did not answer my question, as if he hadn’t heard …”
Mao had no answer to this question. Throughout his reign, peasants had to fend for themselves when it came to housing. The state provided no funds. Even in urban areas, other than apartments for the elite and residential blocks in industrial complexes, virtually no new dwellings were built.
Watching the thatched cottage turned to ashes, Mao eventually said to himself: “Um, Really clean if the earth has fallen to complete void and nothingness!”
This was a line of poetry from the classic Dream of the Red Chamber. But Mao was doing more than just reciting poetry. This was an echo of the attraction to destruction that he had alarmingly expressed as a young man. He continued: “This is called: ‘No destruction, no construction.’ ”
Construction for Mao was exclusively related to becoming a superpower. Here in Hangzhou, he began revising the draft of the first “Constitution,” something he had only just got around to after more than four years in power. Among the things he wanted revised was the promise that his regime “protects all citizens’ safety and legal rights …” Mao underlined the words “all citizens” and wrote in the margin: “What exactly is a citizen?”
Flatterers had suggested that the document should be named the “Mao Tse-tung Code,” clearly with the Napoleonic Code in mind. Mao rejected the idea. He was averse to law, and wanted there to be nothing that could bind him. Indeed, hopelessly feeble as it was, the Constitution was soon to be discarded altogether.
One day Mao toured a temple, which had, as usual, been emptied for security reasons, except for one blind monk. On the altar was a wooden holder with bamboo slips for divination, and Mao asked his photographer to pick a slip for him. She shook the holder, took out a slip, and went to a bookcase containing old poetry books to find the line referred to on the slip. It read: “No peace, either inside or outside home.” There could be no question of presenting this inauspicious line, so she quickly picked another. It had a cheery message, and brought laughter.
The divination was eerily accurate. Mme Mao had come with their daughter, Li Na, to spend Chinese New Year, the traditional time of family reunion. But the visit had ended with Mme Mao in tears, asking for a plane to take her away. Hangzhou, famed not only for its scenery but also for its women, had caught Mao’s sexual fancy. He was to return forty-one times, partly for this reason. He liked young and apparently innocent women, whom underlings procured as partners for the weekly dances and for subsequent fornication.
Mao no longer felt sexual interest in his wife. Even before 1949, his Russian doctor Orlov had been treating him “for sexual problems” with her (Orlov acidly referred to Mme Mao as “the Queen” in a cable to Stalin). Then Mme Mao had suffered serious gynecological problems, for which she was treated in Russia, under the pseudonym “Yusupova,” as she stayed in a palace in Yalta that had belonged to Prince Yusupov, the man who killed Rasputin. (Stalin himself had stayed in it during the Yalta conference.) Her illness almost certainly put Mao further off her. He became more and more brazen in his philandering. Mme Mao was once found weeping by the lake in Zhongnanhai. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said to the man who saw her, Mao’s doctor. “The Chairman is someone no one can beat in political fighting, not even Stalin; nor can anyone beat him in having women, either.” Mme Mao grew increasingly difficult and hysterical, and vented her fury and frustration on the staff, routinely accusing her nurses of “deliberately tormenting” her, striking them, and demanding they be punished.
Meanwhile, as the divination on the bamboo slip uncannily described, quite a few of Mao’s colleagues were going through turmoil and dread. For the nation as a whole, economic policy was about to become drastically harsher as the Superpower Program got under way.
Chou told Stalin in September 1952 that China could also “collect” up to £1.6 billion sterling plus US$200m over five years, “mostly” through what he called “contraband.”
The threat of rustication functioned as a powerful deterrent to urban-dwellers not to
step out of line. Everyone knew that being cast into the peasantry would bring on themselves and their families not only back-breaking labor, but the loss of any certainty of earning a livelihood, and that this misfortune would extend to future generations as well.
That Gao said too much was indirectly confirmed by the top Soviet adviser in China, Arkhipov. When we pushed him on the subject, he threw us a steely stare and said in a different tone of voice: “Why do you want to know so much about Gao Gang?”
37. WAR ON PEASANTS (1953–56 AGE 59–62)
FROM AUTUMN 1953, nationwide requisitioning was imposed, in order to extract more food to pay for the Superpower Program. The system followed that of a labor camp: leave the population just enough to keep them alive, and take all the rest. The regime decided that what constituted subsistence was an amount of food equivalent to 200 kg of processed grain per year, and this was called “basic food.”
But this figure was rarely achieved under Mao. In 1976, the year he died, after twenty-seven years in power, the average figure nationwide was only 190 kg. As city-dwellers got more, the average peasant’s consumption was considerably lower than 190 kg.
Mao wanted the peasants to have far less than this. They “only need 140 kg of grain, and some only need 110,” he declared. This latter figure was barely half the amount needed for mere subsistence. Even though Mao’s chosen minimum was not enforced at this stage, the results of his “squeeze-all” approach were painfully spelled out by some peasants to a sympathetic official within a year of the introduction of requisitioning. “Not a family has enough to eat.” “I worked for a year, and in the end I have to starve for a few months … My neighbors are the same.” “The harvest isn’t bad, but what’s the use? No matter how much we get in we don’t have enough to eat anyway …” As for the “basic food,” “no one has had that much.” In theory, anyone starving was supposed to be able to buy some food back, but the amounts were never adequate, and Mao was constantly berating officials that “Too much grain is sold back!” and urging them to slash the amount “enormously.”
