Mao: Stating the Bleeding Obvious

There is something I find extremely irritating about the current publicity hoopla around Mao: The Unknown Story by Jun Chang and Jon Halliday.

It may be that the authors have, indeed, uncovered previously unknown nuggets and I will be interested to see what they have produced. However, I fail to see how any of the 'revelations' in the book - that the Chinese revolution relied heavily upon Russian support, that Mao was a demagogue and butcher, that the Chinese revolution saw more deaths than either the period of high Stalinism or Nazi rule in Germany, or that Mao turned on his supporters - represent any kind of real breakthrough, or for that matter, an airing of hitherto hidden truths.

While some on the Trotskyist left underwent a period of infatuation with Maoism (and in some instance, dissolved into Maoist organisations) a large section of the left always saw Mao for what he was. The Maoist sects always acted as a barrier to advancement by the Western left and while some members of the media may be embarrassed by the 'revelations' in Mao many of the rest of us always saw the endorsement of Maoist China as either laughable or tragic.

It may be unfair to place Jun Chang and Jon Halliday in the Martin Amis category of reheaters of already known and established facts but it is certainly tempting to do so.

Trotsky's writing on China and the tragedy of the its first, failed revolution highlight how the Chinese working class was crushed due to the mistakes of Stalin and Bukharin and their misplaced faith in Chiang Kai Shek. When Mao came to power it was as the head of a peasant army, with a politics that from the outset mimicked the worst aspects of Stalinism. Personalities are not insignificant factors in the making of history but any analysis worth its salt must recognise the underlying forces at work.

Some of the reviews suggest that this is not the approach taken by the authors. Others, like Will Hutton in the Observer have sought to take a more balanced view. Even one of the more gushing reviews concedes that there is no indication of the quality of sources and it is clear that in some of the cases the authors have relied upon Nationalist sources.

In the meantime, the authors seem to be doing little more than stating what many of us knew all along.