Brothers in Arms (132 page)

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Authors: Odd Arne Westad

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materialism, since it is well known that society develops through a struggle of contradictions, the fight of the old with the new, the newborn with the obsolete. In our consciousness, said Mao Zedong, there are still too many vestiges of the past. It lags behind the constantly developing material world, behind everyday life.
In our countries, continued Mao Zedong, much has come from the former, capitalist society. Take, for example, the issue of the application of corporal punishments to the accused. For China too, this is not a new issue. Even in 1930 in the Red Army during interrogations, beatings were broadly applied. I, said Mao Zedong, at that time personally was a witness to how they beat up the accused. Already at that time a corresponding decision was made regarding a ban on corporal punishment. However, this decision was violated, and in Yanan, it is true, we tried not to allow unlawful executions. With the creation of the PRC we undertook a further straggle with this ugly manifestation.
It is entirely evident, continued Mao Zedong, that according to the logic of things during a beating the one who is being beaten begins to give false testimony, while the one who is conducting the interrogation accepts that testimony as truth. This and other vestiges which have come to us from the bourgeois past will still for a long time be preserved in the consciousness of people. A striving for pomposity, for ostentatiousness, for broad anniversary celebrations, this is also a vestige of the psychology of bourgeois man, since such customs and such psychology objectively could not arise among the poorest peasantry and the working class. The presence of these and other circumstances, said Mao Zedong, creates the conditions for the arising of those or other mistakes with which the Communist parties will have to deal.
I [Iudin] observed that the main reason for Stalin's mistakes was the cult of personality, bordering on deification.
Mao Zedong, having agreed with me, noted that Stalin's mistakes accumulated gradually, from small ones growing to huge ones. To crown all this, he did not acknowledge his own mistakes, although it is well known that it is characteristic of a person to make mistakes. Mao Zedong told how, reviewing Lenin's manuscripts, he had become convinced of the fact that even Lenin crossed out and rewrote some phrases or other in his own works. In conclusion to his characterization of Stalin, Mao Zedong once again stressed that Stalin had made mistakes not in everything, but on some certain issues.
Overall, he stressed that the materials from the congress made a strong impression on him. The spirit of criticism and self-criticism and the atmosphere which was created after the congress will help us, he said, to express our thoughts more freely on a range of issues. It is good that the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] has posed all these issues. For us, said Mao Zedong, it would be difficult to take the initiative on this matter.
Mao Zedong declared that he proposes to continue in the future the exchange of opinions on these issues during Comrade Mikoyan's visit, and also at a convenient time with Comrades Khrushchev and Bulganin.
Then Mao Zedong got distracted from this topic and getting greatly carded away

 

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briefly touched on a few philosophical questions (about the struggle of materialism with idealism, etc.). In particular he stressed that it is incorrect to imagine to oneself Communist society as a society which is free from any sort of contradictions, from ideological struggle, from any sort of vestiges of the past. In a Communist society too, said Mao Zedong, there will be good and bad people. Further he said that the ideological work of China still to a significant extent suffers from a spirit of puffery [nachetnichestva] and clichés. The Chinese press, in particular, still cannot answer to the demands which are presented to it. On the pages of the newspapers the struggle of opinions is lacking, there are no serious theoretical discussions. Because of insufficient time Mao Zedong expressed a wish to meet with me again to talk a little specifically about issues of philosophy. At the end of the discussion I [Iudin] inquired of Mao Zedong whether he had become acquainted with the
Pravda
editorial about the harm of the cult of personality, a translation of which was placed in [
Renmin Ribao
] on March 30. He responded that he still had not managed to read through that article, but they had told him that it is a very good article. Now, said Mao Zedong, we are preparing for publication in
Renmin Ribao
a lead article which is dedicated to this issue, which should appear in the newspapers in the coming week. Beginning on March 16, he noted jokingly, all the newspapers in the world raised a ruckus about this issue China alone for the time being is silent.
Then I briefly told Mao Zedong about the arrival in the PRC of sixteen prominent Soviet scholars and about the beginning of the work of a theoretical conference dedicated to the Twentieth Congress, which is opening today in the club of Soviet specialists. Soviet and Chinese scholars will deliver speeches at the conference.
Mao Zedong listened to these thoughts with great interest. The conversation continued for three hours. Mao Zedong was in a good mood, and joked often.
The Deputy Head of the Administration of Affairs of the CCP Yang Shankun, the Chief of the CC CCP Translation Bureau Shi Zhe, and Counselor of the USSR Embassy in the PRC T. F. Skvortsov attended the conversation.
Source: AVPRF, f. 0100, op. 49, pa. 410, d. 9, pp. 87-98. Translated by Mark Doctoroff.
X. Mao Zedong, Speech on Sino-American and Sino-Soviat Relations, January 27, 1957
Mao Zedong often gave impromptu speeches on various topics to various audiences, even on sensitive topics such as foreign relations. This is an excerpt from his speech

 

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at a meeting of first secretaries of CCP committees at the provincial, city, and autonomous region level from early 1957. Mao spoke right after receiving Zhou Enlai's report on his visit to the Soviet Union and several East European countries in January 1957.
[Let me] talk about U.S.-China relations. At this conference we have circulated a copy of the letter from [Dwight D.] Eisenhower to Jiang Jieshi. This letter, in my view, aims largely at dampening the enthusiasm of Jiang Jieshi and, then, cheering him up a bit. The letter urges [Jiang] to keep calm, not to be impetuous, that is, to resolve the problems through the United Nations, but not through a war. This is to pour cold water [on Jiang]. It is easy for Jiang Jieshi to get excited. To cheer [Jiang] up is to continue the hard, uncompromising policy toward the [Chinese] Communist Party and to hope that internal unrest would disable us. In his [Eisenhower's] calculation, internal unrest has already occurred and it is hard for the Communist Party to suppress it. Well, different people observe things differently!
I still believe that it is much better to establish diplomatic relations with the United States several years later than sooner. This is in our favor. The Soviet Union did not form diplomatic relations with the United States until seventeen years after the October Revolution. The global economic crisis erupted in 1929 and lasted until 1933. In that year Hitler came to power in Germany whereas Roosevelt took office in the United States. Only then was the Soviet-American diplomatic relationship established. [As far as I can anticipate,] it will probably wait until when we have completed the Third Five-Year Plan that we should consider forming diplomatic relations with the United States. In other words, it will take eighteen or even more years [before we do so]. We are not anxious to enter the United Nations either. This is based on exactly the same reasoning as why we are not anxious to establish diplomatic relations with the United States. The objective of this policy is to deprive the U.S. of its political assets as much as possible, so that the U.S. will be placed in an unreasonable and isolated position. It is therefore all right if [the U.S.] blocks us from the United Nations and refuses to establish diplomatic relations with us. The longer you drag on [these issues], the more debts you will owe us. The longer the issues linger there, the more unreasonable you will appear, and the more isolated you will become both domestically and in face of international public opinion. I once told an American in Yanan that even if you United States refused to recognize us for one hundred years, I simply did not believe that you United States could refuse to recognize us in the one hundred and first year. Sooner or later the U.S. will establish diplomatic relations with us. When the United States does so and when Americans finally come to visit China, they will feel deep regret. It is because by then, China will become completely different [from what it is now]: the house has been thoroughly swept and cleaned, "the

 

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