Fifth Question [Lofthouse]:
Pearl S. Buck [1892 – 1973], the winner of the Pulitzer and Noble Prizes for Literature, expressed her dissatisfaction with Chiang Kai-shek’s policies while remaining anti-Communist.
The FBI classified her as a Communist sympathizer and kept a file on her that ran in the hundreds of pages. The Chinese Communists [CCP] under Mao called her a “running dog” of capitalism. In China, Buck was critical of both the Nationalists and the Communists.
However, she said the Chinese people would be better off with the CCP than being ruled by Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists.
What was it about Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT that caused Buck to believe this?
Answer [Parfitt]:
I can’t speak to Buck’s thought-process, but I agree with her appraisal. I don’t know how anyone could read 20th century Chinese history and not, during the second phase of the Civil War (1945-1949), root for the big Red boot. Although Mao was a heartless bastard, he was right when he likened the KMT to a toilet that, no matter how many times flushed, still stinks.
It wasn’t that Mao won the Civil War so much as Chiang lost it. Whole armies defected when generals realized the Generalissimo was up to his old tricks. Chiang’s post-WWII China-rule was aptly described by one US diplomat as “one of the biggest carpetbagging operations in history.”
It had taken the Nationalists six years to even face the Japanese in battle. Chiang’s officers were yes-men, his troops poorly trained and press ganged. At war’s end, the Nationalists deemed anyone residing outside the wartime capital of Chongqing a traitor, never mind they had left 40 percent of the populace at the mercy of Hirohito’s merciless army, defeating that army only once.
The KMT forced citizens to hand in all money and valuables. Hoarders were publicly executed. The KMT intercepted international aid and sold it on the black market, unsurprising given it had sold US military equipment to the Japanese.
Chiang Kai-shek was an inept, extortionate, dictatorial thug responsible for the deaths of millions of Chinese.
The KMT has always been very “business-minded.” It controlled the opium trade, and once extorted every bank and enterprise in Shanghai. The party’s collection agency was the Green Gang. Not keen on extending a “loan” to China’s new government? Perhaps you’ll have a change of heart when your own coffin is delivered to your door.
The Nationalists remain hopelessly corrupt, but at least in Taiwan they ended martial law and allowed for democratic reforms. For that, they deserve a medal, and can probably forge one from gold stolen from China.
What Buck couldn’t have known was that China’s peasant liberators were led by a madman whose reign was an exercise in revenge and would turn the nation on its head.
Response [Lofthouse]:
From what I’ve learned of Pearl S. Buck, I’m sure she would agree with your assessment of Chiang Kai-shek. However, she may have disagreed with the description of Mao as a totally heartless bastard and lunatic.
A better description would be that Mao feared China would revert to its Western dominated feudal past, and this paranoia contributed to Mao’s disastrous blunders.
If Mao had been “totally” heartless, there would have been no improvement of living standards in China as PRB.org reports, “For three decades after the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, China’s economy grew and stabilized, and the living standards of most Chinese citizens greatly improved. But China remained a very poor country…”
Mao was a product of the era. To understand how a sensitive, young idealist turned into the man that launched the Cultural Revolution, I suggest reading Mao and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Final Word [Parfitt]:
China does not have a “Western dominated” past. How could it? Europeans didn’t arrive until the mid-16th century. China’s modern history has been influenced by the West, but – to reiterate – that theme is just one of dozens.
Mao’s personal physician, Dr. Li Zhishui, a man who knew Mao intimately and saw him nearly every day he was in power, wrote a 736-page biography about the ruler called The Private Life of Chairman Mao. In it, Li decribes Mao’s thought-process as “prescientific,” adding that Mao himself was “incapable of love and devoid of human feeling.” Numerous health issues are mentioned and explained, but nowhere does Li mention anything resembling PTSD.
To understand Mao, one must read books.
I arrived at my assessments of Mao, Chiang, China, etc. by reading copiously about the nation’s past; a broad spectrum of books, mainly by academics, none of whom, to authenticate their claims, cite themelves.
Continued on December 3, 2011 in Discussion with Troy Parfitt, the author of “Why China Will Never Rule the World – Travels in the Two Chinas” – Part 7 or return to Part 5.
See Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 1
______________
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Mr.Parfitt,
I’m not saying that the sources you quoted are necessarily wrong, but they’re definitely extremely biased. One should always read sources from all perspectives. Its extremely unfair that you don’t even bother to consider what the CCP says, however logical some of what they say may be.
You have only quoted sources that are extremely critical (and thats an understatement) of China. Mao is described as a man with “no redeeming qualities”. Confucianism is described by you as “lacking morality”.
I urge you to read some sources that are pro-China, or at least some sources that show both sides of the story.
None of us are saying that China is perfect and we acknowledge that China, confucianism, and the CCP have its fair share of problems, but you seem to only see a bad side to everything about them.
Terry, Lloyd, etc.
What positions should I hold about China? How should I arrive at these positions?
Is China somehow unknowable? If so, what makes it this way?
Someone must know what China is. How do they arrive at such conclusions?
Finally, how does commentary about the United States serve to shed light on China?
Who can prove that Li Zhisui was his personal physician apart from the Chinese communist party? Your reasoning doesn’t make any sense at all. Do you have any solid evidence that he was Mao’s personal physician.
You described Li as “a sad, old man” and a man with “integrity”. Did you know the man in person? I can’t say I understand some of the people I know personally to such a degree.
Qi Benyu was arrested and imprisoned under Mao’s order. Why are his views ignored?
Sidney Rittenberg has since moved to the United States and does not work for the party anymore. He also suffered under Mao’s order during the cultural revolution. Should his views be ignored as well.
Sidney Rittenberg is known to have Mao personally and frequently posed photoes with him. He is certainly a much more reliable source than Dr. Li, which you trust so much, to the extent that you think you know him better than I know some of my personal friends.
And while this may be a bit off topic, how else could Mr.Li have made big money in the US as just another random Chinese physician?
Terry said,
“Besides, there are doubts over whether he was Mao’s personal docter. In the west, you can’t earn money from writing a Mao biography unless you portray him as an evil dictator who loved to repress his people. Perhaps Mr.Li was just another one of these people. Would have been worth making these lies up just for the money.”
Not Mr. Li, Terry. Dr. Li. There is no doubt at all that Dr. Li Zhishui was Mao’s personal physician. If this statement is incorrect, provide an objective source. The Chinese Communist Party does not count as an objective source.
When Dr. Li wrote the book, he was a sad, old man, who had lost his wife and most of his friends. The book is filled with a sense of despair and regret. It seems unusual that such man – a man of such intelligence and integrity – would spend some of his final years penning a mammoth and involved book (with little commercial appeal)in order to ‘say not nice things about our precious Mao.’
There are much better ways to make money than by writing books. Dr. Li was incandescently bright; certainly, he knew this.
Mr. Parfitt said, “The Chinese Communist Party does not count as an objective source.”
I suspect Mr. Parfitt’s definition of an objective source are the authors he has read and of course his own opinions and anyone that agrees with him. Heaven forbid, that any source be considered objective that had a different opinion from Mr. Parfitt’s
There are 80 million members in the Communist Party and I’m sure that among that throng of people there are a few potential “Deep Throats” (an example taken from the Nixon era). If an anonymous member of the Party spoke out as long as their identity was not revealed, would he or she be considered an objective source or a disgruntled member the Party? I guess it would depend on the context of what they shared.
How much validity do we give an anonymous source such as Nixon’s Deep Throat as objective?
In America, conservatives consider most of the media liberal and not objective while liberals consider that element of the media such as Murdock’s Media Empire, which includes FOX TV and conservative talk radio as not objective. In fact, the “New York Times” has often claimed to be liberal, which would make them non-objective and biased for liberals just as Murdock’s empire is biased against liberals.
Then we have the CIA’s “Operation Mockingbird”, and in recent years a top retired CIA official claimed that the media in the US reported what the CIA wanted them to report when it came to anyone the US and/or CIA considered an enemy of the US—I’m sure that includes Communist China.
Finding an objective media source or any objective source in the West when it comes to the CCP would be almost impossible. Maybe “Foreign Policy Magazine” might qualify. In my opinion, the UK’s “The Economist” would not qualify as objective 100% when it comes to China. I’ve subscribed to both magazines and do not have a final opinion on “Foreign Policy” but do on “The Economist”. So far, “Foreign Policy Magazine” has impressed me with the objective view. In a year or two, I’ll have a better opinion.
Before I could judge the UK’s Guardian, I would have to read everything that paper has published on China going back for years to see how biased or objective they are. However, since I do not have the time to do the research and gather what the Guardian has published on China, I will let you do that task then everyone can decide for him or herself if the Guardian is biased toward China or not once you report back with copies of all the published articles.
In fact, since bias does exist in the so-called free press in the West, each source would have to be examined closely to decide if any were objective when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party.
I suspect that the Democractic and Republican parties in the US are about as reliable at the Chinese Communist Party is when it comes to being honest about issues.
Mr. Parfitt,
No, I have not read Li’s book, and I do not plan to.
Can you name any biography of Mao that has portrayed him in a good light that has been a hit among western readers? I doubt so. You like so many western readers would rather read about how he was a terrible man who wanted to kill millions rather than hear anything good about him. Any biography that says good things about the man will never make it big in the western countries.
Mr. Parfitt,
If I take your word for granted, then Mao is portrayed as a man with “no redeeming qualites”. I don’t see how a book can get more biased than that.
Besides, there are doubts over whether he was Mao’s personal docter. In the west, you can’t earn money from writing a Mao biography unless you portray him as an evil dictator who loved to repress his people. Perhaps Mr.Li was just another one of these people. Would have been worth making these lies up just for the money.
And have you read Li’s book Terry?
Mr. Parfitt,
Once again you quote a source which is obviously extremely biased and has nothing good to say about Mao.
Quoted from wiki:
“Criticism
As soon as the book was published, it received criticism from those who argued that it provided an inaccurate picture of Mao. A statement protesting that many of the claims made in Li’s book were false was issued soon after its publication, signed by 150 people who had personally known or worked with Mao, including Wang Dongxing, Li Yinqiao and Ye Zilong.[17]
[edit]Lin, Xu and Wu
In 1995, a Chinese language book was published in Hong Kong (which at that time was independent from the People’s Republic of China), entitled Lishi de Zhenshi: Mao Zedong Shenbian Gongzuo Renyuan de Zhengyan (meaning The Truth of History: Testimony of the personnel who had worked with Mao Zedong). It was written by three people who had known Mao personally: his personal secretary Lin Ke, his personal doctor from 1953 to 1957, Xu Tao and his chief nurse from 1953 to 1974, Wu Xujun. They argued that Li did not only not know Mao very well, but that he presented an inaccurate picture of him in his book.[18] The trio attack Li’s claim that he had been Mao’s personal physician in 1954, instead presenting copies of a document from Mao’s medical record showing that Li only took on the responsibility for caring for Mao on 3 June 1957. Wu goes on to argue that whilst much of Li’s memoir is devoted to talking about Mao in the period between 1954 and 1957, Li was not his general practitioner during this period, and therefore would not have had access to the personal information that he claimed.[19] Lin, Xu and Wu also criticise a number of Li’s other claims as being impossible. For instance, whilst Li claimed that he was present at exclusive meetings for high-ranking Communist Party members such as the CCP Politburo Standing Committee meetings, Lin et al. argued that it would have been an extreme breach of protocol for him to be allowed into these events.[20] In one particular case, Li claimed to have witnessed a public argument between Mao and Deng Xiaoping at the CCP Eighth Party Congress in September 1956, with the latter criticising the use of personality cult centred around Mao in China, which Li alleged Mao favoured. As Lin et al. argue however, Mao himself had publicly criticised the personality cult in April 1956, when he stated that it was a lesson to be learned from the regime of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. Lin et al. therefore believe that the debate between Mao and Deng that Li was referring to simply never happened.[21]
They also criticise Li’s claims regarding Mao’s personal life, for instance challenging his assertion that Mao was sterile, in which they are supported by Professor Wu Jieping, who was another of Mao’s medical carers. They theorise that Li had fabricated this story in order to explain why Mao did not have many illegitimate children with the many women that, Li controversially claimed, he had sexual intercourse with.[22]
Other critics
Another Chinese critic of Li’s work was Qi Benyu, who was formerly a member of the Cultural Revolution radicals in Beijing. Qi had been arrested and imprisoned at Mao’s order in 1968, subsequently spending the next eighteen years in prison. Despite his persecution at the hand of Mao however, Qi criticised Li’s portrayal of the Chinese leader, claiming that “aside from his account of the support-the-left activities (zhi zuo) in which he [Li] personally participated, most of the Cultural Revolution part of his memoirs consists of stuff gleaned from newspapers, journals and other people’s writings. To make Western readers believe that he had access to core secrets, Li fabricated scenarios, resulting in countless errors in his memoirs.” Having lived in proximity to Mao for a number of years, Qi remarked that during this time he heard no rumour of Mao ever having extra-marital affairs despite the fact that other senior Party members were known to, and that Mao was always respectful towards “female comrades”. Due to this and other reasons, Qi believed Li’s claim that Mao had affairs was a lie.[24]
Professor Frederick Teiwes, a western academic specializing in the study of Maoist China, was also critical of The Private Life of Chairman Mao, arguing in his book The Tragedy of Lin Biao: Riding the Tiger during the Cultural Revolution 1966-1971 (1996) that despite Li’s extensive claims regarding the politics behind the Cultural Revolution, he was actually “on the fringe” of the events taking place in the Chinese government. He went on to criticise the book as being overtly and polemically “anti-Mao”, being “uncritical” in its outlook and being “dependent on the official sources” to create a picture of the revolution. He characterised Li’s book as offering nothing new but “recycling widely available information and interpretations”.
Others who knew the man personally seem to view him in a different light. Sidney Rittenberg, the first ever American to join the CCP, has a different view of him.
Perhaps you can start quoting sources that show both sides of the story, instead of selectively quoting sources that have nothing good to say about him. Just a though. 😀
Lloyd,
Call me Troy.
You should read The Private Life of Chairman Mao. Perhaps that would give you a better indication of whether Mao had some type of stress-related condition or not.
To say Dr. Li Zhishui was bright, not to mention perceptive and articulate, would be an understatement. I would say he was exceptionally intelligent, and probably a gifted physician. Li consulted with Mao almost every day Mao was in power. His book is mesmerizing, deftly penned, overflowing with interesting tidbits. It’s, if I recall, 736 pages long, yet you’ll sail through them.
Instead of explicating on what medical conditions Mao might have had, why not read about the conditions we know he had – from his personal doctor? Some of the more interesting parts of the book are the medical explanations.
Other interesting parts have to do with Mao’s “weekly dances,” to which young girls were always invited. Mao seemed pretty robust before his health slipped; his swimming, his travelling around the country, his staying in lavish guest houses and “working on his longevity” (having intimate encounters with girls, in the Imperial tradition; dancing was banned during the Cultural Revolution, so he had to take his girls to certain rooms – Li mentions which ones – in the Great Hall of the People), not to mention his official duties, didn’t seem to slow him down much. But then he became weak, depressed, and ill.
There may be better books about Mao regarding his rule, but I doubt there are better ones regarding Mao the man and his daily life in Zhongnanhai, the governmental compound area near Tiananmen.
What would Mao have had PTSD from? The Long March? [Remember, he was the dominant force in the Long March; that’s what helped secure his supremacy].
Mao understood that to rise above the other candidates for Party leader after the Long March, he would have to utilize the Confucian paradigm, meaning: he would to become a “teacher.” That prompted him to hire a tutor and study Marxism.
The next step was marketing. Mao learned about the power of propaganda from having worked in the propaganda department under the Nationalist Party in Guangzhou. He had propaganda posters made (in Yanan – maybe Snow mentions this in his book?) calling Mao – wait for it – the New Confucius.
Mao may have claimed to dislike Confucius, but he utilized the Confucian rubric for his own purposes. He thought the masses were idiots for believing in the Sage (or that believing in the Sage had turned the masses into idiots) – and he wanted to punish them for that.
The man was filled with hate.
Mr. Parfitt,
Interesting rambling on your part.
However, you have sidestepped the issue and avoided the fact that Mao may very well have suffered from PTSD and this condition may have also been responsible for many of the things he set in motion after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, and the PTSD only worsened as he aged as modern Western psychology now recognizes is a fact. Brain scans of PTSD victims proves that there is permanent damage to the brain and how it affects the person’s ability to reason and function.
No matter how brilliant you feel Mao’s doctor was, there is no way he could have recognized a mental condition that those in the West had not even diagnosed or developed a method to treat, which wouldn’t start to appear until the 1990s many years after Mao’s death.
In addition, when did this doctor earn his medical degree and from where? Since China was mostly isolated from the rest of the world after 1949, then he must have been trained as a doctor at an earlier time and it would have been difficult to impossible for him to keep up with the development of modern Western medicine and psychology after 1949 for anyone living in China.
When we consider the high probability that Mao suffered from acute PTSD, then it is impossible to call him a monster. More appropriate would be a victim and product of his era (1893 – 1976). By the time the CCP won the Civil War, Mao was fifty-six years old and had lived during one of the most tumultuous times in Chinese history and had witnessed and experienced death and horrors that most in the West have never experienced and hopefully never will. To deny that this did not have an impact on who Mao became later in his life is an act of idiocy and folly.
In fact, one of Mao’s contemporaries in China was Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975) who wasn’t much different from Mao when it came to being an authoritarian leader that could be brutal when needed to survive and hold onto power. Both were a product of their environment and era. To judge Mao outside that context from current politically correct humanitarian Western values is not a balanced assessment but is seriously stilted.
In addition, Mao and Chiang were not alone in the list of authoritarian Chinese leaders that could be brutal to hold on to their leadership positions between 1911 to 1949. Many of the warlords that ruled portions of China after the collapse of the Qing dynasty were as brutal but not as capable since from an evolutionary perspective, the most capable man in any given environment (no matter how brutal current popular Western history judges him) will come out on top and in China that man was Mao, who died undefeated and thirty-four years later the CCP, which he led to victory, is still in power and China is still a developing country with an impressive record in that regard.
Mr. Parfitt says in his Final Word for Part Six, “Numerous health issues are mentioned and explained, but nowhere does Li mention anything resembling PTSD.”
I say, “How could Mao’s doctor have mentioned anything about PTSD since it is a fairly new area of psychology?”
Mr. Parfitt, the reason I suspect that Mao had PTSD is because I have suffered with PTSD since 1966 when I returned from Vietnam. I know the symptoms. I’ve lived with them for decades and in recent years had counseling through the VA. However until 2005, I had no idea that my symptoms were PTSD until identifed by the VA after long term counseling by more than one expert.
In fact as I read about Mao and learned more about him, I wrote about my suspicious in “Mao and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” at http://wp.me/pN4pY-2he
I’m not surprised that Mao’s doctor didn’t mention anything resembling PTSD, since Mao had been dead for several years before PTSD was even mentioned in English in 1980 in an American publication called the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). However, even then it was listed as a subcategory of anxiety disorders.
It wouldn’t be until the edition of DSM-IV, published in 1994, that the Advisory Subcommittee on PTSD was unanimous in classifying PTSD as a new stress response category.
Clearly, there is no way that Mao’s doctor could have known anything about PTSD or know what to look for. In fact, wasn’t he a medical doctor and not a psychologist?
Since PTSD wasn’t even recognized in the West let alone China until after 1980, how could anyone in China know about it during Mao’s era?
Source used to date the history of the recognition of PTSD as an anxiety disorder caused by trauma:
http://www.lib.auburn.edu/socsci/docs/ptsd.html
In addition, it wasn’t until 2008, that doctors in China started working with PTSD victims. Now, China is very much aware of PTSD.
In “Chinese Army Hit With PTSD Epidemic”, we discover that “In the wake of the relief efforts for the recent earthquakes in China, army doctors find themselves faced with thousands of soldiers exhibiting strange symptoms. These include severe fatigue, shortness of breath, palpitations, headaches, excessive sweating, dizziness, disturbed sleep, fainting and flashbacks to traumatic situations encountered during the weeks of working in the earthquake zone (where nearly 100,000 people died).”
Moreover, “Chinese doctors are consulting the growing body of medical knowledge and research on PTSD, particularly work done in the United States to treat the many soldiers exposed to the stress of working in wartime Iraq. Chinese military doctors estimate that up to 20 percent of the soldiers, who performed relief duty in the earthquake zone, now have PTSD. Many civilian workers are similarly affected, and also need treatment.”
Source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/20080618.aspx
Evidence that my theory of Mao having PTSD comes from his doctor’s observations.
“According to Mao’s personal physician Zhisui Li (in The Private Life of Chairman Mao), the leader of China used heavily barbiturates although otherwise he was in excellent health. Later in life, Mao developed paranoia; Li Zhisui mentions also Mao’s aversion to bathing. His personal life became secretive and in many ways morally corrupt.”
Source: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mao.htm
PTSD develops differently from person to person. While the symptoms of PTSD most commonly develop in the hours or days following the traumatic event, it can sometimes take weeks, months, or even years before they appear.
I’ve tagged a few of the symptoms of PTSD that Mao clearly had. I wonder how many other symptoms would fit.
Many risk factors revolve around the nature of the traumatic event itself. Traumatic events are more likely to cause PTSD when they involve a severe threat to your life or personal safety: the more extreme and prolonged the threat, the greater the risk of developing PTSD in response.
• Symptoms of PTSD: Avoidance and numbing (Mao’s doctor wrote His personal life became secretive)
• Avoiding activities, places, thoughts, or feelings that remind you of the trauma
• Inability to remember important aspects of the trauma
• Loss of interest in activities and life in general (Mao’s doctor wrote His personal life became secretive)
• Feeling detached from others and emotionally numb
• Sense of a limited future (you don’t expect to live a normal life span, get married, have a career)
Symptoms of PTSD: Increased anxiety and emotional arousal
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• Irritability or outbursts of anger
• Difficulty concentrating
• Hypervigilance (on constant “red alert”) (Mao’s doctor wrote Later in life, Mao developed paranoia)
• Feeling jumpy and easily startled
Other common symptoms of PTSD
• Anger and irritability
• Guilt, shame, or self-blame
• Substance abuse (his doctor wrote that Mao used barbiturates heavily)
• Feelings of mistrust and betrayal (Mao’s doctor wrote Later in life, Mao developed paranoia–In fact, Mao went out of his way to get rid of those he mistrusted and suspected of possible betrayal)
• Depression and hopelessness
• Suicidal thoughts and feelings
• Feeling alienated and alone (Mao’s doctor wrote His personal life became secretive)
• Physical aches and pains
Source: http://helpguide.org/mental/post_traumatic_stress_disorder_symptoms_treatment.htm