Mao's Mistakes

Assessing his legacy

Since his death 4 1/2 years ago, Mao Tse-tung has come under increasing criticism from the comrades who succeeded him. They have spoken bluntly about the "errors" Mao made in his later years, and have even authorized the taking down of Mao statues and pictures all over China. Yet long lines still gather whenever the Great Helmsman's mausoleum in Peking's Tienanmen Square is opened to the public. What the Communist Party needed was a definitive perspective on Mao. That judgment appeared to have been handed down in a speech by a comrade of Mao's from the Long March days, Huang Kecheng, 82, head of the party's Central Discipline Inspection Committee.

Like Deputy Chairman Deng Xiaoping, who now guides China, Huang ended up on Mao's purge list. He was dismissed as Chief of Staff of the Peoples Liberation Army in 1959 for opening criticizing the shortcomings of Mao's Great Leap Forward. Not until Mao died was Huang readmitted to a party position.

Huang's speech actually was delivered last November. Its significance as party dictum was demonstrated by the fact that it was suddenly reprinted last week by major newspapers all over the country, commencing, significantly, with the Liberation Army Daily.

Huang is forthright about Mao's mistakes but he also asks for understanding. The Chairman's two main errors, says Huang, were that in his later years he was too impatient for quick results and that "he handled contradictions within the party like contradictions with the enemy, so that bad elements were able to take him in. This resulted in ten years of great disorder during the Cultural Revolution."

Tracing the Great Helmsman's decline, Huang explains: "In his later years, he ceased to be prudent. He had little direct contact with the day-to-day life of the masses, and his democratic style suffered." Injecting some bitter personal memories, Huang recalls that "as far back as 1958, I had already found that his brain was overly concentrated. The cerebral tension caused him to make mistakes. He had great, lofty aspirations and hoped to accomplish things in a few years that may take several hundred years to do.

Huang softens his criticism by suggesting that responsibility for what went wrong should not rest solely with Mao. "If we impute all the mistakes committed by our party to Chairman Mao, this does not conform to historical facts. What Comrade Deng Xiaoping said is right: we old party members shared our merits in setting up a new China. Now it is unfair to shift all mistakes to one person, as though we have no responsibility."

If Mao was so wrong toward the end, what legacy did he leave? Mao thought, says Huang. "Mao Tse-tung's thought will remain the guide for our action for a long time to come. The history of contemporary China has proved that only Marxism, Leninism and Mao Tse-tung thought can save China."

When Deng, in a 1978 interview, discussed Mao's inadequacies, he suggested that the old man had been 70% right and 30% wrong. Huang's assessment though lacking in specifics, follows that ratio, and Western diplomats in Peking last week interpreted the speech as a trial balloon. If those masses who visit the Tiananmen tomb do not accept the critique, the leadership will probably go a step further and reveal specific errors. If they do, the way should be clear for a sixth party plenum next summer at which Mao's place in history will be more clearly defined, and out-of-favor Mao followers like Party Chairman Hua Guofeng may face a purge.

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