The New Number One Counter-Revolutionary inside the Party: Academic Biography as Mass Criticism

Abstract

that Mao authored atrocities and suffering and that he bullied and murdered party members and others to advance his own or the Party's cause. But the CCP's rise to power, Mao's success in establishing and retaining leadership over the other party leaders, and his skillful turning of Soviet aid to his own ends cannot be explained by the authors' one-dimensional formulation. Their view of Mao is not much less prejudiced and distorted than Beijing's official line, though it lies at the other end of the spectrum. Some of the authors' most important claims for the period up to 1949 are controverted by the evidence. Others, such as the large-scale aid the CCP received from the Soviet Union or the cultivation of opium in the Yan'an years, have already been noted by other scholars. The book's biggest problem is its one sidedness and improper use of sources. As a result, we feel it does not represent a reliable contribution to our understanding of Mao or of twentieth-century China.