1959.12 毛泽东

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Mao Tse-Tung
MICHAEL LINDSAY is an Australian who lived in China for many years. During part of World War II he was with the Communist guerrillas and came to know Mao Tse-tung personally. Since 1951, Mr. Lindsay has been Senior Fellow of the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University of Canberra.

By Michael Lindsay
DECEMBER 1959 ISSUE
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by MICHAEL LINDSAY


WHEN a man has identified himself with a cause for the greater part of his adult life, that cause becomes part of his personality. Mao Tse-tung would certainly claim that his life was meaningless apart from the Chinese Communist Party. In attempting to portray the man, one can only trace the interaction between his personality and the movement of which he has become the leader, or go back to the original personality and the social environment which produced this identification with a cause.


One can trace family influences on Mao — a loving but unassertive mother and a conservative, narrow-minded, and domineering father, against whom the boy rebelled. This rebellion can explain Mao’s refusal to accept his father’s plans for his future — to settle down into the moderate ambition of developing a family business in the narrow environment of a Hunan village.

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Hunan was not a very remote or backward province, but it was conservative. From Hunan had come the armies which defeated the T’aip’ing Rebellion and the great officials who, a generation before, had tried to restore Chinese society within the traditional Confucian pattern. In Mao’s generation, the failure of this restoration was obvious. The Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion had shown China’s complete helplessness on the international scene, and internal problems remained unsolved. All sorts of new ideas were spreading, from revolutionary newspapers and from schoolteachers returned from Europe or Japan, and the foundations of traditional Chinese society were under criticism.

As a boy, Mao was exposed to a bewildering variety of influences. He had a basic Chinese classical education and was fascinated by the traditional rebellious literature of the old popular novels. Middle school in Changsha, the provincial capital, gave him some contact with Western learning. In a fit of enthusiasm for the 1911 Revolution, he joined the army for six months, and he spent the rest of the year reading in the provincial public library. His reading included a lot of Western history, political theory, and philosophy in translation — probably rather confused translation. It was only at the age of nineteen that he settled down to a regular course at the Hunan Teachers Training College, where the teachers included both Chinese classical scholars and students returned from Europe.


This period was probably decisive in forming Mao’s personality. He became the leader of a group of young men who were patriotic and full of exciting and visionary ideas. As Mao described them to Edgar Snow twenty years later, “ My friends and I preferred to talk only of large matters — the nature of men, of human society, of China, the world, and the universe!” Many of the particular ideas which Mao held then he was to change later. What has remained is the attitude of mind — looking at the world in terms of some broad general pattern and seeing it as a place in which men could realize their visions of an ideal society.

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The next great influence was a period at Peking in the winter of 1918-1919. Peking University was then the center of intellectual life in China. The prevailing atmosphere was strongly antitraditional, but every variety of political and social theory was hotly debated as providing the alternative to Confucianism. The most influential magazine was New Youth, edited by Professor Ch’en Tu-hsiu, who later became the first leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

To support himself Mao obtained a job in the university library. (He claims that he was paid only eight dollars a month, but men who were professors at the time say that the job actually paid seventeen dollars.) He also fell in love with the daughter of Yang Chen-ch’i, one of his teachers in Changsha, who had become a professor at Peking. They were married in 1920, and she was later killed during the Civil War.

Mao returned to Hunan in 1919 and engaged in revolutionary politics, editing a local magazine. It was only on a second visit to Peking in 1919 that he became seriously interested in Marxism, but by 1920 he considered himself a convinced Marxist, and in 1921 he attended the meeting in Shanghai at which the Chinese Communist Party was founded. For years Mao had been searching for a set of basic beliefs and a definite social ideal, and in Communism he felt that he had found them. He does not seem to have wavered from the “decision for Communism” which he made in the early 1920s. In later years he was to have his own ideas about the best means for establishing Communist power, but he never seems to have questioned the dogmas of Communism — the vision of a new, ideal type of human society to be reached through the power of the Communist Party and the acceptance of the Soviet Union as the guide to this new society.

WHAT makes Mao Tse-tung such a remarkable and complex person is the struggle between his ideals and his natural abilities. On the one hand, there is his identification with the Communist myth: the Communists see the world in terms of the most general theoretical system, from which they deduce the plans for building the perfect society, and they consider any sacrifices in the present worth while. On the other hand, he is a very practical man, and possesses shrewd common sense, and is slightly contemptuous of the people who take general theoretical systems too seriously.

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In the 1920s, Ch’en Tu-hsiu had serious misgivings about the Comintern policy of close collaboration with the Kuomintang because of his belief in Marxian theory, though he always in the end followed Comintern directives. To someone who took his Marxism seriously, Stalin’s analysis of the Kuomintang as a multiclass party was a theoretical monstrosity. Mao does not seem to have shared these theoretical misgivings. He was quite ready to collaborate with the Kuomintang so long as this seemed an expedient road to Communist power. He became secretary to Hu Han-min, one of the more conservative Kuomintang leaders, and was considered to belong to the extreme right wing of the Communist Party. His divergences with Comintern policy came on the practical issue of the extent to which Communist power could be based on the peasants and could develop without control of large cities. Mao’s strategy proved to be successful, though his rivals, who believed that a Communist Party must be based on the city proletariat, were more orthodox Marxists. But even while he was ruling Communist areas with almost no industrial workers in them, he did not try to modify Marxist theory to fit his practice, but continued to maintain that the Communist Party represented the workers rather than the peasants. In his view, the peasants were a means to serve the cause of the revolution; the revolution was not a means to serve the interests of the peasants. In terms of the Communist vision of the future, the peasants could only realize their ultimate true interests by serving the working class and finally becoming part of it.

This conflict between visionary Marxism and practical common sense is clearly seen in Mao Tse-tung’s writings. He is original and interesting when he writes on problems of military or political strategy; as a theorist of guerrilla warfare he is unrivaled. His writings on Communist theory show little originality. They are mostly orthodox and rather turgid Marx-Leninism.

In the beginning, the Russian Communists were suspicious of Mao’s peasant-based Communism. One article in International Press Correspondence actually listed Maoism as a heresy. But when Mao proved successful in the countryside while the Party organization in the cities became weaker, the Russian attitude changed, though Russian publications remained evasive about his exact status in the Party, even when they recognized his position as Chairman of the Chinese Soviet Republic. In fact, Mao had a long struggle against rivals for the Party leadership. He became the recognized leader of the Chinese Communist Party only in 1935, after the policies followed by Russian-trained leaders had led to the loss of the Communist areas in South China and the evacuation of the Communist army on the famous Long March.

The new Communist base in Northwest China was much smaller than the areas which the Communists had controlled in the South. If Chiang Kai-shek had been able to continue the Civil War for a few more years, he probably could have won it. It was Japanese pressure on China which gave Mao his real opportunity; the Communists negotiated a truce after the Sian incident, and the agreement for wartime cooperation with the National Government followed.

THE wartime situation was exactly suited to Mao’s talents. The more doctrinaire objectives of Communist policy were officially put in cold storage for the duration of the war. The main efforts of the Party were concentrated on developing guerrilla warfare and on organizing the peasant support necessary for a common-sense reformist program. This was the field in which Mao’s abilities showed to best advantage. It is quite likely that, looking back, Mao would feel the Yenan period to be the most happy and successful of his life.

As the undisputed leader of the Party, Mao Tsetung at Yenan was a slightly aloof figure. His role seemed to be that of thinking out basic strategy, leaving its detailed execution in the hands of followers whose competence and loyalty he could trust. On the personal side, though life at Yenan was primitive by Western standards, it gave a higher degree of comfort and security than Mao Tse-tung had enjoyed before. He had divorced his second wife, who had gone to Moscow in the early years of the war, and his authority in the Party enabled him to marry a young and beautiful film actress.

It was in the Yenan period that the Chinese Communists got the reputation of being merely agrarian reformers, and there was evidence to justify this reputation. The Party was carrying out a very effective reformist program, and Mao declared to visiting journalists that it did not intend to return to the former, more doctrinaire agrarian policy. In the government organization, some non-Communists did have considerable influence. Practical policies were often incompatible with strict Marx-Leninist orthodoxy. Articles were published which raised the question that Communist orthodoxy always evades: How can one be sure that the Communist Party does represent the masses? And there was a widespread undoctrinaire attitude very unusual in a Communist organization and very different from anything one found after 1949. There was, of course, another side — the uncritical acceptance of the Soviet line on international affairs, the continued expression of Marx-Leninist orthodoxy in more theoretical writings, the doctrinaire attitude remaining in some key organizations. But it was not unreasonable to hope, on the evidence available in 1944 or 1945, that the Chinese Communist Party would develop away from Stalinism under Mao’s leadership.


One of the interesting “might have been” questions is: What would have happened if the Chinese Communist Party had ever faced a clear choice between Communist orthodoxy and a truly democratic system? What would have happened if, abiding by the rules of democratic process, the Party could have obtained a clear opportunity to continue reformist policies and gain power through genuine popular support? Either the Kuomintang or the United States government could have presented the Chinese Communists with this choice, which might have split the Party. But the challenge was never made. The policies of the Kuomintang and the United States never disproved the orthodox Marx-Leninist theory that a ruling class will always resort to armed force rather than make any surrender of power and a capitalist government will never mediate impartially between Communists and non-Communists.

Both General Marshall and other well-informed Chinese observers felt that some of the Chinese Communists really hoped for a settlement in the negotiations of 1945 and 1946. Mao seems to have been among them, though it is doubtful whether he ever fully faced some of the issues involved, such as the need for choosing between Chinese and Soviet loyalties. He was quite strongly criticized within the Party for having gone too far in concessions in October, 1945, and he defended his actions by arguing that it was worth taking considerable risks in the hope of sparing the Chinese people the horrors of a new civil war. There are some indications that his position in the Party was weakened in 1946 by the failure of the negotiations.


VICTORY in the Civil War came much sooner than the Communists expected, and after the establishment of the new government in October, 1949, Mao Tse-tung made his first trip outside China — a visit to Moscow. The next few years saw a process of political coordination with the Soviet Union, and most of the special features of the Yenan period disappeared. Agrarian policy went back to where it had left off in the Chinese Soviet Republic, and Mao came out in favor of a rapid transition to collective farming. He was now The Leader, receiving both modern and traditional honors. His portrait was displayed everywhere, and some publications treated his name like that of an Emperor, placing it always at the beginning of a new line, raised two characters above the rest of the text. For several years, like an Emperor, he lived a secluded existence, appearing in public only on ceremonial occasions.

By the end of 1956, the basic requirements for Mao’s vision of the new society had been realized, at least for its first stage of socialism. Private ownership of the means of production had disappeared with the collectivization of agriculture and the taking over by the state of all industry and trade. The opposition had either been liquidated or had accepted a place in the new system. But this formal realization of socialism can hardly have satisfied the common-sense, practical side of Mao Tse-tung’s personality. As socialism was in the interests of the people, the people ought to like it. Mao knew from the Yenan days what it was like to be a leader with real popular support, and he must have been shrewd enough to feel the difference in the synthetic popular support of a totalitarian system. As he began to be less secluded, he must have realized that many people were still dissatisfied. And he knew from his earlier experience that the Communist Party could make mistakes and that the comparative freedom of criticism and the real power of some non-Communists which had existed in the Yenan period had been a valuable means of enabling the Communist Party to correct its mistakes. Finally, if China could show that its socialist system had such a wide degree of popular support that it could afford to allow free criticism, it would be obvious that China was doing a better job in building socialism than the Soviet Union, which had suppressed the Hungarian revolt and was moving back toward Stalinism.


This is a speculative reconstruction of Mao’s thinking, but it would explain his action in 1957, when he took the lead in the movement for encouraging free criticism and made his speech, in February, on “contradictions among the people.” He probably expected that the criticism would show basic support for the regime but would indicate minor mistakes which could be corrected.

Criticism started slowly, but increased when people found that the promise not to penalize critics was apparently being observed. A great deal of the criticism was fundamental, attacking especially the privileged position of the Communist Party. What must have been most alarming was that fundamental criticism came not only from the older intelligentsia but also from Communist Party members of long standing and from the students, a group which had been the most ardent supporter of the regime in its early days. And criticism was strongest among the students of worker or peasant origin.

To admit that much of this criticism was valid and to meet its basic demands would have involved radical revisionism, going further, perhaps, than Tito’s or Gomulka’s. This, in turn, would have involved a purge of the Stalinist elements in the Party, who had been critical of the tolerance of criticism from the beginning. It might have involved a split with the Soviet Union, leaving China defenseless against American attack, and Mao probably believed that this was a real threat.


In fact, the critics were suppressed in the antirightist campaign, which started in June, 1957, but Mao must have wondered what had gone wrong. Why did it seem that Mao had less real popular support than he had had in the 1940s? To admit that people really did not like the Communist road to the perfect society of the future would have been to repudiate his basic convictions. The alternative explanation was that what China had got was not yet proper socialism, in which case the remedy was to advance more rapidly. Mao traveled more around the country and probably found that many local cadres were still enthusiastic and had visions about the possibility of a “great leap forward” toward the ultimate ideal of a Communist society. This, again, is a speculative reconstruction of Mao’s thinking, but it could explain his support for the communes program in 1958 and the extravagant claims which were made for it. If the communes succeeded and the great leap forward produced its results, Mao could feel assured that his lifelong dreams of the perfect future society were being realized.

Here again, Mao’s hopes were disappointed. It proved necessary to slow down and modify the development of communes. The experiment was regarded with considerable skepticism in the Soviet Union, and the more extravagant claims were not even translated in the Soviet press. The enthusiastic expectations of the great leap forward in 1958 have been largely disappointed.


Mao suffered a real setback when he retired from the presidency and was replaced by Liu Shao-chi, who had opposed the experiment in free criticism and who seems to favor following the experience of the Soviet Union in economic policy. While Mao still remains the leader of the Party and a world figure in the Communist movement, he is probably a deeply disappointed man. For nearly forty years he had been motivated by the vision of the new society which could be built in China, and he has found that the reality cannot be made to correspond to his vision.





毛泽东
MICHAEL LINDSAY是一位在中国生活多年的澳大利亚人。在第二次世界大战的部分时间里，他与共产党的游击队在一起，并认识了毛泽东本人。自1951年以来，林赛先生一直是堪培拉的澳大利亚国立大学国际关系系的高级研究员。

作者：迈克尔-林赛
1959年12月号
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作者：迈克尔-林赛（MICHAEL LINDSAY


当一个人在他成年后的大部分时间里都认同一项事业时，这项事业就成为他人格的一部分。毛泽东肯定会说，离开了中国共产党，他的生命就毫无意义。在试图描述这个人的时候，人们只能追踪他的个性和他已经成为领导人的运动之间的互动，或者回到最初的个性和产生这种对事业的认同的社会环境。


人们可以追溯到家庭对毛泽东的影响--一个充满爱但没有主见的母亲和一个保守的、狭隘的、专横的父亲，这个男孩对他们进行反抗。这种反叛可以解释毛泽东拒绝接受他父亲对他未来的计划--在湖南乡村的狭窄环境中安于发展家族企业的温和抱负。

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湖南不是一个非常偏远或落后的省份，但它是保守的。从湖南来的军队打败了太平天国的叛乱，而在前一代，伟大的官员们试图将中国社会恢复到传统的儒家模式中。在毛泽东这一代，这种恢复的失败是显而易见的。中日战争和义和团运动表明中国在国际舞台上完全无能为力，而内部问题仍未解决。各种各样的新思想在传播，从革命报纸和从欧洲或日本回来的教师那里，传统中国社会的基础受到了批评。

作为一个男孩，毛泽东受到了各种令人困惑的影响。他接受过基本的中国古典教育，对旧时流行小说中的传统反叛文学非常着迷。在省会长沙读初中时，他与西学有了一些接触。在对辛亥革命的热情中，他参军六个月，其余时间都在省立公共图书馆读书。他的阅读包括大量的西方历史、政治理论和哲学翻译--可能是比较混乱的翻译。直到19岁时，他才在湖南师范学院的正规课程中安下心来，那里的老师既有中国的古典学者，也有从欧洲回来的学生。


这一时期对毛泽东性格的形成可能是决定性的。他成为一群爱国的、充满激动人心的、有远见的年轻人的领袖。正如毛泽东二十年后对埃德加-斯诺所描述的那样，"我和我的朋友们只喜欢谈论大问题--人的本质、人类社会、中国、世界和宇宙的本质！" 毛泽东当时所持的许多特殊想法，他后来都改变了。保留下来的是思想态度--从一些广泛的一般模式来看世界，并将其视为一个人们可以实现其理想社会愿景的地方。

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接下来的巨大影响是1918-1919年冬天在北京的一段时期。北京大学当时是中国知识界的中心。当时的气氛是强烈的反传统，但各种政治和社会理论都在激烈地争论，认为它们可以替代儒家思想。最有影响力的杂志是《新青年》，由后来成为中国共产党第一任领导人的陈独秀教授主编。

为了养活自己，毛泽东在大学图书馆找到一份工作。(他声称他的月薪只有8美元，但当时担任教授的人说，这份工作实际上有17美元。） 他还爱上了他在长沙的老师之一杨振之的女儿，后者已成为北京大学的教授。他们于1920年结婚，后来她在内战中被杀。

1919年，毛泽东回到湖南，从事革命政治，编辑一份当地的杂志。只是在1919年第二次访问北京时，他才对马克思主义产生了浓厚的兴趣，但到了1920年，他认为自己是一个坚定的马克思主义者，并于1921年参加了在上海举行的中国共产党成立的会议。多年来，毛泽东一直在寻找一套基本信仰和明确的社会理想，而在共产主义中，他觉得自己已经找到了这些。他似乎没有动摇过他在20世纪20年代初做出的 "共产主义的决定"。在后来的岁月里，他对建立共产主义政权的最佳手段有自己的想法，但他似乎从未质疑过共产主义的教条--通过共产党的力量达到一个新的、理想类型的人类社会的愿景，并接受苏联作为这个新社会的指导。

使毛泽东成为这样一个杰出而复杂的人的原因是他的理想和他的自然能力之间的斗争。一方面，他认同共产主义的神话：共产党人从最普遍的理论体系来看世界，从中推导出建立完美社会的计划，他们认为在当前的任何牺牲都是值得的。另一方面，他是一个非常实际的人，拥有精明的常识，对那些把一般理论体系看得太重的人略带蔑视。

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在20世纪20年代，陈独秀对共产国际与国民党紧密合作的政策有严重的疑虑，因为他相信马克思主义理论，尽管他最后总是遵循共产国际的指示。对于一个认真对待自己的马克思主义的人来说，斯大林对国民党作为一个多阶级政党的分析是一个理论上的怪胎。毛泽东似乎并不认同这些理论上的疑虑。他非常愿意与国民党合作，只要这似乎是一条通向共产党政权的捷径。他成为胡汉民的秘书，胡汉民是比较保守的国民党领导人之一，被认为是属于共产党的极右翼。他与共产国际政策的分歧来自于实际问题，即共产党政权在多大程度上可以以农民为基础，在不控制大城市的情况下可以发展。事实证明，毛泽东的策略是成功的，尽管他的对手认为共产党必须以城市无产阶级为基础，他们是更正统的马克思主义者。但即使在他统治的共产主义地区几乎没有工业工人的情况下，他也没有试图修改马克思主义理论以适应他的实践，而是继续坚持认为共产党代表工人而不是农民。在他看来，农民是为革命事业服务的一种手段；革命不是为农民的利益服务的手段。就共产党人对未来的设想而言，农民只有通过为工人阶级服务并最终成为工人阶级的一部分，才能实现其最终的真正利益。

在毛泽东的著作中，可以清楚地看到这种富有远见的马克思主义与实际常识之间的冲突。当他写到军事或政治战略问题时，他具有独创性和趣味性；作为游击战的理论家，他是无可匹敌的。他关于共产主义理论的著作几乎没有显示出任何原创性。他们大多是正统的、相当乏味的马克思列宁主义。

一开始，俄国共产党人对毛泽东的以农民为基础的共产主义持怀疑态度。国际新闻通讯》的一篇文章实际上将毛泽东主义列为异端。但当毛泽东在农村被证明是成功的，而城市里的党组织却变得软弱无力时，俄国人的态度发生了变化，尽管俄国出版物对他在党内的确切地位仍然避而不谈，即使他们承认他作为中华苏维埃共和国主席的地位。事实上，毛泽东为争夺党的领导权与对手进行了长期斗争。他在1935年才成为中国共产党公认的领导人，在此之前，俄国培训的领导人所奉行的政策导致了中国南方共产党地区的丧失和共产党军队在著名的长征中的撤离。

共产党在中国西北的新基地比共产党在南方控制的地区小得多。如果蒋介石能够将内战再持续几年，他可能会赢得内战。正是日本对中国的压力给了毛泽东真正的机会；在西安事件后，共产党谈判达成了休战协议，随后与国民政府达成了战时合作协议。

战时形势正好适合毛泽东的才能。在战争期间，共产党政策中比较教条的目标被正式冷藏起来。党的主要工作集中在发展游击战和组织农民对常识性改革方案的必要支持。这是毛泽东的能力显示出最佳优势的领域。很有可能，回顾过去，毛泽东会觉得延安时期是他一生中最幸福和最成功的时期。

作为党的无可争议的领导人，毛泽东在延安是一个略显冷漠的人物。他的角色似乎是思考基本战略，将其详细执行交给他可以信任的追随者。在个人方面，尽管按照西方标准，延安的生活是原始的，但它提供了比毛泽东以前享有的更高程度的舒适和安全。他与第二任妻子离婚，后者在战争初期去了莫斯科，他在党内的权威使他能够与一位年轻漂亮的电影女演员结婚。

正是在延安时期，中国共产党人得到了仅仅是农业改革者的声誉，而且有证据证明这种声誉是正确的。党正在实施一项非常有效的改革方案，毛泽东向来访的记者宣布，党不打算回到以前那种更教条的土地政策。在政府组织中，一些非共产党员确实有相当大的影响力。实际政策往往与严格的马克思列宁主义正统思想不相容。发表的文章提出了共产主义正统观念总是回避的问题。人们如何确定共产党确实代表了群众？在一个共产党组织中，普遍存在着一种非教条主义的态度，这在1949年后是非常不同的。当然，还有另一面--在国际事务上不加批判地接受苏联的路线，在更多的理论著作中继续表达马克思列宁主义的正统思想，在一些关键组织中仍然存在教条主义的态度。但是，根据1944年或1945年的证据，希望中国共产党在毛泽东的领导下脱离斯大林主义而发展，也不是没有道理的。


其中一个有趣的 "可能是 "问题是。如果中国共产党曾经在共产主义正统思想和真正的民主制度之间面临明确的选择，会发生什么？如果在遵守民主程序规则的情况下，中国共产党能够获得一个明确的机会，继续推行改革主义政策，并通过真正的民众支持获得权力，会发生什么？无论是国民党还是美国政府，都可以向中国共产党人提出这个选择，这可能会使党分裂。但这个挑战从未被提出。国民党和美国的政策从未推翻过正统的马克思列宁主义理论，即统治阶级总是诉诸于武装力量，而不是进行任何权力的交出，资本主义政府永远不会在共产党人和非共产党人之间进行公正的调解。

马歇尔将军和其他消息灵通的中国观察家都认为，一些中国共产党人确实希望在1945年和1946年的谈判中达成解决。毛泽东似乎也在其中，尽管他是否曾完全面对其中的一些问题，如需要在中国和苏联的忠诚之间做出选择，这一点令人怀疑。他在党内受到了相当强烈的批评，认为他在1945年10月的让步中走得太远了，他为自己的行动辩护，认为为了使中国人民免受新的内战的恐怖，值得冒相当大的风险。有迹象表明，由于谈判的失败，他在党内的地位在1946年被削弱了。


内战的胜利比共产党人预期的要快得多，在1949年10月新政府成立后，毛泽东进行了他的第一次中国以外的旅行--访问莫斯科。在接下来的几年里，与苏联进行了政治协调的过程，延安时期的大部分特色都消失了。农业政策又回到了中华苏维埃共和国的原点，毛泽东出来支持迅速过渡到集体农业。他现在是领袖，获得了现代和传统的双重荣誉。他的画像随处可见，一些出版物像对待皇帝一样对待他的名字，总是将其放在新行的开头，比其他文字高出两个字符。几年来，他像一个皇帝一样，过着隐居的生活，只在仪式上出现在公众面前。

到1956年底，毛泽东对新社会愿景的基本要求已经实现，至少在社会主义的第一阶段。随着农业的集体化和国家对所有工业和贸易的接管，生产资料的私人所有权已经消失了。反对派要么被清算，要么接受了在新制度中的地位。但是，这种社会主义的正式实现很难满足毛泽东个性中常识性的、实际的一面。由于社会主义符合人民的利益，人民应该喜欢它。毛泽东从延安时代就知道成为一个有真正民众支持的领导人是什么样子，他一定很精明，能够感受到极权主义制度的合成民众支持的不同。当他开始不那么隐蔽的时候，他一定意识到许多人仍然不满意。而且他从早先的经验中知道，共产党可能会犯错误，在延安时期存在的相对自由的批评和一些非共产党员的实际权力，是使共产党能够纠正其错误的宝贵手段。最后，如果中国能够证明其社会主义制度拥有如此广泛的民众支持，以至于它能够允许自由批评，那么很明显，中国在建设社会主义方面比苏联做得更好，因为苏联镇压了匈牙利的叛乱，正在向斯大林主义倒退。


这是对毛泽东思想的推测性重建，但它可以解释他在1957年的行动，当时他带头鼓励自由批评的运动，并在2月份发表了关于 "人民内部矛盾 "的讲话。他可能预计，批评会显示出对政权的基本支持，但会指出可以纠正的小错误。

批评开始得很慢，但当人们发现不惩罚批评者的承诺显然得到了遵守时，批评就增加了。大量的批评是根本性的，特别是对共产党的特权地位进行攻击。最令人震惊的是，基本的批评不仅来自年长的知识分子，而且来自长期的共产党员和学生，而这个群体在早期曾是政权最热心的支持者。而在工人或农民出身的学生中，批评最为强烈。

如果承认这些批评有道理，并满足其基本要求，就会涉及到激进的修正主义，也许比铁托或戈穆尔卡的修正主义更进一步。这又会涉及到对党内斯大林分子的清洗，这些人从一开始就对容忍批评持批评态度。这可能涉及到与苏联的分裂，使中国对美国的攻击毫无抵抗力，而毛泽东可能认为这是一个真正的威胁。


事实上，在1957年6月开始的反右派运动中，批评者被镇压了，但毛泽东一定想知道是哪里出了问题。为什么毛泽东得到的真正的民众支持似乎不如他在1940年代得到的支持？如果承认人们真的不喜欢通往未来完美社会的共产主义道路，就等于否定了他的基本信念。另一种解释是，中国所得到的还不是适当的社会主义，在这种情况下，补救措施是更快地推进。毛泽东在全国各地走了更多的地方，可能发现许多地方干部仍然热情高涨，对 "大跃进 "的可能性抱有幻想，以实现共产主义社会的最终理想。这也是对毛泽东思想的一种推测性重建，但它可以解释他在1958年对公社计划的支持以及为其提出的奢侈的要求。如果公社成功了，大跃进产生了结果，毛泽东就可以放心地认为他一生的完美未来社会的梦想正在实现。

在这里，毛泽东的希望再次落空。事实证明，有必要放慢和修改公社的发展。在苏联，人们对这一试验持相当怀疑的态度，更奢侈的说法甚至没有在苏联报刊上得到翻译。对1958年大跃进的热情期待在很大程度上落空了。


毛泽东遭受了真正的挫折，他从主席职位上退下来，由刘少奇接替，他曾反对自由批评的试验，而且他似乎赞成在经济政策上遵循苏联的经验。虽然毛泽东仍然是党的领袖，是共产主义运动中的世界性人物，但他可能是一个深感失望的人。近四十年来，他一直被可以在中国建立的新社会的愿景所激励，而他发现，现实无法与他的愿景相一致。