Some Afterthought on Chang Jung's Book, "MAO"

Having read about 200 pages of MAO, I have obtained a substantial insight of one of modern history’s most colossal and mythical figures; In the pantheon of the “incarnates”, regardless of their deeds, Mao is certainly to be categorized as one of the top-brass ubermensch, (to borrow a Nietzschean terminology), along with the statues of Napoleon, Lincoln, Hitler, and Stalin. All of them had single-handedly shaped the course of human experience with an earthshaking might and a sublimated legacy which is bound to endure into eternity. It is safe to conjecture that Mao was an unordinary prodigy of his time, who posed to me as a redoubtable juggernaut! Juxtaposing to the Anima of his red dragon-like scale, I am indeed being dwarfed as a little boy, who only possesses the passion and courage like that of David and Siegfried.

If Mao indeed represents everything that I’m opposing, if I am even probing on the periphery of the possibility of casting away the Red-spell, I need to study this man inside-out with a zealous inquisition in order to pierce into the heart of this red-worshipping phenomenon, which until this date still possesses the infatuation of millions of Chinese. Having read thus far, the following are some conclusions which are rational to enumerate:

1. Mao’s whole life capsulated the Chinese history of Modern era. To analyze and interpret him is to explain the Chinese destiny of the 20th Century.

2. China at the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of 20th Century was a land of PANDEMONIUM. Mass majority of the population were “dirt-poor”, (as said by the author in the notes of the book), and had been utterly impoverished and dispossessed by natural and man-made catastrophes. After the fall of the Manchu Dynasty, the whole country was divided into numerous arbitrarily carved out regions monopolized by vying warlords. This phenomenon was being further exploited by different types of ambitious daredevils whose aim was to conquer the whole country—the Japanese imperialism; Moscow’s secret Red subversion with its infamous COMINTERN’s agent, CCP; as well as the demon-incarnated and the self-perceived as the “mandate-of-heaven”, Mao.

3. Mao indeed possessed that extraordinary aura surrounding him and emanated an infinitely exuberant charisma, which easily bend the knees of a Folk with a millennium-old tradition of emperor-worshipping.

4. Due to China’s economic backward condition and the deplorable under-educated masses at the turn of the 20th Century, it was indeed the most attractive haven for communist/Bolshevist/Proletarian/Socialist propagation. When the world saw the triumph of the October Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, it made even more ordinary Chinese, (most of them being poor!!) wanting to create a Red state of their own. Both of my grandparents were among the millions who had been enchanted by this egalitarian-like Proletariat Ruled utopian fantasy.

5. If people had to choose from the warlords, (which means the disintegration of China), the Japanese, (which means the colonization of China), the KMT, (which means the embracing of an inept governing of a corruption-saturated Nanjing administration and perpetual “Capitalist/feudal/imperial” exploitation), and the Reds, (who promised a phony panacea to relieve all China’s demise and establish an Orwellian “animal farm” of their own), the majority kindhearted innocent civilians will easily incline toward the latter, consider you don’t need too much brain power to plant seditious propaganda among factory workers and rustic peasants to foment riot and confrontation!

In summary, I would just like to add that by this time everyone had forgot all about that abortive infant republican government of Beijing whose fleeting existence only lasted for 17 years, (1911-1928), and which was destroyed by the KMT’s Northern Expedition! It is rightly to speculate as hindsight that Chiang Kai Shek’s fatal mistake was to oust the Beijing government and destroyed the Five-Color Flag, which represented all of the Hope of a New China. Granted that the Beijing government was just as incompetent and fallible, it was nonetheless the central authority with official international recognition. When Chiang invalidated the power of the First Republic and tried to foster his own out of scratch, he was once again lurching as a fledgling and bound to be inflicted with hideous assaults from all fronts. At the meantime, in the eyes of all beholders of Chiang’s militant intention to unify China was so that the country will be monopolized under the KMT dictatorship, symbolized by the new flag with their own party emblem, the White Sun, on it! This fateful blow was to strengthen all factions with their own treacherous aim—the Japanese, the Warlords, and last but not least, the REDS!