There was something for everyone in the Mao persona. As Edgar
Snow wrote in the early 1960s: "What makes him [Mao] formidable
is that he is not just a party boss but by many millions of
Chinese is quite genuinely regarded as a teacher, statesman,
strategist, philosopher, poet laureate, national hero, head of
the family, and greatest liberator in history. He is to them
Confucius plus Lao-tzu plus Rousseau plus Marx plus Buddha...."
(73) In the 1990s, Mao remains a patriotic leader,
martial hero, philosopher-king, poet, calligrapher (surrounded as
he so often was with the bric-à-brac of the traditional
literatus --cloth-bound books, writing brushes and ink stones),
but he is also widely seen in a positive light as a strong and
irascible figure, a wily infighter, a man who was both emperor
and oracle, the ultimate Machiavellian manipulator who knew, many
would argue, just how to keep the restive Chinese nation in
place. (74) Mao consciously played on the contrasting Chinese
traditions relating to the Sage-Emperor and rebel chieftain... .
(75) As one academic has noted -- and it is a remark that remains
significant today -- the Communist revolution (and we could add
Mao as both an individual and symbol), had "carried through
[an]...attempt to reconstruct the world in the spirit of
inner-worldly transcendence inherent in Confucianism." (76)
For many people Mao represented not only national but also
physical potency. Most of the Mao-related jokes current from the
early 1980s cheerfully reflected the leader's prowess in bed, and
they often used figures like Zhou Enlai or Hua Guofeng as foils.
On one level such humour represented a transgression against the
august figure of the Leader and allowed a popular invasion of the
"forbidden zone" (
jinqu)
relating to the person of Mao. On another level, they were also
indicative of a gradual process that has seen Mao become more
human, approachable and, in the new Mao Cult, the familiar of the
Chinese masses. Through this process, one often described by
Chinese critics as "secularization" (
shisuhua),
Mao has been enlisted in the ranks of the people in contrast and
even opposition to the present leaders who were increasingly
perceived of as being sectarian, corrupt and lacklustre. (77) The
fascination with the details of Mao's everyday life as given in
the plethora of books published from 1988 ... is also an
indication of this process. Despite the Chinese authorities'
denunciations of the BBC for broadcasting Dr. Li Zhisui's
revelations concerning Mao's sex life in early 1994, one could
speculate that popular opinion in China was probably neither
particularly outraged nor surprised by the latest proof of the
Chairman's talents. If anything people may well regard Mao's
voracious appetites as further evidence of his exceptional
stature,
superhuman energy and unequivocal success.
It could also be argued that Mao, the ultimate father-mother
official (
fumu guan),
enjoyed such a broad appeal because, to an extent, he was a love
object ... . (78) One could argue that he was also a bisexual or
omnisexual figure. Mao's official portrait shows the enigmatic
face of a man-woman (or grandfather-mother). In poetry, song and
prose he had often been eulogized as a mother/father, and his
personality in all of its majesty and pettiness fits in with
complex attitudes regarding sexual personæ. In his dotage
Mao, a bloated colossus supported by young female assistants,
(79) often looked like a grand matriarch, time having blurred his
features into a fleshy unisex mask. Li Zhisui's memoirs,
The Private Life of Chairman Mao
, provide numerous fascinating insights into the Chairman's
various peccadilloes, not least of which was his irrepressible
and, in some cases, bisexual appetite. Not only did he disport
himself with a bevy of comely ingenue, it would appear that he
was not above lunging at the handsome young men in his guard who
put him to bed, or to expect a "massage" from one of their number
before retiring. (80)
In this context it is instructive to recall the reaction of the
American journalist Agnes Smedley to her first meeting with Mao
in Yan'an:
His hands were as long and sensitive as a woman's.... Whatever else he might be he was an aesthete. I was in fact repelled by the feminine in him. An instinctive hostility sprang up inside me, and I became so occupied with trying to master it, that I heard hardly a word of what followed... (81)
The Mao suit only added to the sexual egalitarianism of the Mao
image. While in his later years Mao was a wrinkled,
green-toothed, slack-jawed old man, the official description of
the Chairman was of a vibrant and healthy individual whose
features remained unravaged by that mighty sculptor time. His
pictures were airbrushed to perfection and his appearance in
documentary footage carefully doctored to present the best
possible image so that even in terminal decline official
propaganda could claim that he "glowed with health and vigour,
and he enjoyed a ruddy complexion."
73. Quoted in Jerome Ch'en, ed.,
Mao,
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969, p. 131.
74. One of the most evocative fictional depictions of Mao as
mastermind can be found in the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare's
The Concert: A Novel,
written in Albanian and translated from the French of Jusuf
Vrioni by Barbara Bray, New York: William Morrow & Co., 1994,
pp. 25-39, 79-90, 181, 311-312, 323.
75. Schram, "Party Leader or True Ruler?" p. 235 and n. 84.
76. See Shmuel Eisenstadt, "Innerweltliche Transzendenz und die
Strukturierung der Welt. Max Webers Studie über China und
die Gestalt der chinesischen Zivilisation," quoted in Schram,
"Part Leader or True Ruler?" p. 228. In this context, see also
Thomas A. Metzger,
Escape from Predicament. Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Evolving
Political Culture,
New York: Columbia University Press, 1977, pp. 121 & 233,
also quoted in Schram, pp. 226 & 228.
77. As the government's campaign against corruption widened in
1995, many people seemed unimpressed by all the storm and fury.
One comment was: "All the Beijing officials are corrupt. Chairman
Mao wasn't a good man, but at least he knew how to deal with
corruption." Graham Hutchings, "China's Anger with Leaders Bursts
Out,"
The Telegraph,
14 April, 1995.
78. See Mayfair Mei-hui Yang,
Gifts, Favors, and Banquets. The Art of Social Relationships
in China,
Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp.
257-258.
79. For the memoirs of the two most prominent of Mao's "personal
secretaries," or
shenghuo mishu
as they were commonly referred to, see Zhang Yufeng,
Mao Zedong yishi,
Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1989; and Meng Jinyun's
recollections as published in Guo Jinrong,
Mao Zedongde huanghun suiyue,
Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 1990.
80. Zhisui Li,
The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The memoirs of Mao's
personal physician Dr. Zhisui Li,
translated by Tai Hung-chao, London: Chatto & Windus, 1994,
pp. 358-359.
81. Quoted in Simon Leys, "Aspects of Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976),"
Broken Images,
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980, p. 64.