Chapter 41 Conversation with Snow[1]

(October 22, 1960) Mao Zedong: When did you leave Yan'an? Snow: Nineteen thirty-nine.Generally speaking, I don't know the situation in the United States very well.I lived in China for twelve years. During World War II, I was a war correspondent stationed in the Soviet Union and Europe. It was only in 1950 that I really lived in the United States.During this period, the United States has undergone tremendous changes.In terms of technology, the change is especially dramatic. Mao: We have great shortcomings in our research on the United States.The Academy of Sciences should have an institute, at least one group dedicated to the study of American issues.There must be a group of people who specialize in the study of the United States and pay attention to the conditions of all strata in the United States.In addition to the upper class, we should also pay attention to the public opinion of the middle and lower classes you mentioned.

S: With regard to the Taiwan issue, I wonder if the Chairman has seen a heated debate in the United States? It was a debate between Kennedy[2] and Nixon[3] on the Matsu and Quemoy issues and the US policy toward the Far East. Mao: I read some. S: They debated so fiercely that the names of Matsu and Jinmen often appeared in the newspapers, so one person made up a joke, saying that people had forgotten the names of the two presidential candidates, that they were called Nixon and Kennedy, and thought that They are called Matsu and Kinmen. Chairman Mao: They used this issue in their campaign because Americans are afraid of war.The two islands were too close to the mainland, and Kennedy used this to win votes.

S: However, this also reflects the fact that public opinion in the United States is very divided on this issue.There has generally been a lukewarm response to this campaign, but this issue has generated a lot of interest because a lot of people are opposed to current policies in the United States, so it's a real issue. Chairman Mao: Nixon had his own ideas. He said that these two islands must be protected.He is also fighting for votes.The question has given life to the American campaign.Nixon went too far by talking as if the US government had an obligation to protect the two islands.The U.S. State Department says it has no obligation to protect the two islands.Whether to protect or not depends on the current situation, according to the situation at the time, and the president makes a decision.This was a statement made by Eisenhower[4] two years ago.

S: Someone raised this question: According to the U.S. Constitution, after the new president is elected in early November, he will not take office immediately, but will have to wait until next January.They said, what if Kennedy is elected and China goes to occupy Quemoy and Matsu on November 6th? Chairman Mao: Is this how they ask questions? S: Until next January, Eisenhower was president. Chairman Mao: That is not how we view the two islands.We have made a public statement on this issue, which is to let Chiang Kai-shek guard these two islands.Nor do we cut off their supplies.If they don't have enough supplies, we can still help them.What we want is the entire Taiwan region, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, including Kinmen and Matsu, which are all Chinese territories.Regarding these two islands, they are still in the hands of Chiang Kai-shek, and they can still be guarded.It seems that the American campaigners haven't checked out this material yet.

S: Possibly. Chairman Mao: What is there to argue about? What we want are not just the two islands of Kinmen and Matsu, but the whole of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands.This question may take a long time.It has been eleven years now, for example, two more eleven years, or even longer, is possible.Because the US government is unwilling to give up Taiwan.It is unwilling to give up, and we will not fight. We negotiate with it[5], first in Geneva and later in Warsaw.It's in Taiwan, and we won't fight it either.We need to negotiate a settlement, not force.The U.S. government has long known this truth.We will not fight Kinmen and Matsu either, as we have made public statements in the past.Therefore, there is no danger of war, and the United States can rest assured that it will continue to occupy Taiwan.This year has been eleven years, another eleven years, eleven years later, isn't it thirty-three years? Perhaps in the thirty-second year, the United States will give up Taiwan.

S: I think the Chairman wants to wait until Chiang Kai-shek's soldiers become three-legged people. Chairman Mao: It is mainly the problem of the US government, not that of Chiang Kai-shek or anyone else.If Chiang Kai-shek's people became three-legged, there would still be people in Taiwan, and there would still be people with two legs.People can be found at will. S: Does the chairman really think that it will take eleven years, or even twenty-two years, to change the position of the United States? The situation in the United States is developing very fast now, and it will change very quickly.This change is of course related to external factors.In short, the situation will change.

Mao: Maybe.You have an article in your article saying that we are less interested in the United States’ recognition of China than we are in the United Nations. It seems that we are more interested in entering the United Nations.In my opinion, this is not the case, and it cannot be said that way.In the United Nations, Chiang Kai-shek should not represent China, but we should represent it. This should have been the case long ago.However, the U.S. government organized most countries and wouldn't let us go.There's nothing wrong with that, we're in no rush to get into the UN.It is other countries that are eager to get us into the United Nations, not including the United States of course.Britain now has to listen to the United States.However, the original intention of the United Kingdom may be what you said, that is, if we are lawless outside the United Nations, it is better to keep us in the United Nations and obey the rules.Quite a number of countries hope that China will abide by the rules.You know, we fought guerrillas, we're used to being wild.There are so many rules, it's uncomfortable, isn't it? If we don't enter the United Nations, what do we lose? Nothing.How many benefits does joining the United Nations have? Of course, there are some benefits, but it is not necessarily true that there are many benefits.We don't quite understand the sentiment that some countries are vying to get into the United Nations.Our country is a "United Nations", and one of our provinces is bigger than other countries.

S: I often say that too. Mao: They imposed an economic blockade on us, just like the economic blockade that the Kuomintang imposed on us at that time.I am very grateful to the Kuomintang for the economic blockade we have had, so that we have no choice but to do it ourselves, causing our various bases to engage in production.The Kuomintang paid us back in 1937, 1938, and 1939, and it has imposed a blockade since 1940.We should thank them, it is they who let us engage in production on our own and do not depend on them.Now the United States is also imposing a blockade on us, and this blockade is good for us.

S: I remember the chairman said to me in 1939: We have eight things to thank the Kuomintang.One point is that because the Communist Party developed too slowly, the Kuomintang imposed an economic blockade to force us to develop faster; the other point is that because the Communist Party had too few army recruits, Chiang Kai-shek put more people in prison, etc. Wait.Later, the Chairman's points of view were proved to be correct.In fact, the more the people are oppressed, the faster the power of the people develops. Mao: That's the truth. S: You said in one of your articles [6]: The law of imperialism is to oppose the efforts of the colonial peoples to fight for freedom, make trouble, fail, make trouble again, and fail again.Their blockade of China has certainly failed.However, that didn't make them give up on the idea.Now they are planning to impose an economic blockade against Cuba.In my opinion, this is also going to fail.It's hard to understand what they want from here, but it looks like they're going to impose an embargo on Cuba anyway.

Chairman Mao: Now it is a partial embargo, which will not have much impact on Cuba; if it is possible to reach a complete embargo, the impact will be greater.But it is impossible for them to get stuck in Cuba. Cuba has a way to go.Cuba is better now than we were in Yan'an in the past. S: In your life, when you looked at the fate of the Chinese revolution, what period struck you as the darkest? Chairman Mao: We have had times like that, for example, when we lost a battle, of course we were not happy.We have lost battles.During the Long March, our numbers were reduced, and of course we were not happy.But in general, we feel that there is hope, no matter how difficult it is.The difficulties at that time were not mainly external, but internal.Zhang Guotao's split[7] was the biggest difficulty.We also overcame that difficulty.We used appropriate policies to win over the troops led by Zhang Guotao.When you came, we were already together.And the troops[8] led by He Long are on our side.

S: How much time does the chairman spend in Beijing a year, and where has he been to other places? Chairman Mao: I stay in Beijing for at most four months a year.There are many places I haven't been to yet.You have been to Xi'an, but I have not.I have never been to Xinjiang, Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Yunnan, or Guizhou.Whenever I go to a place, I am willing to take a look and talk to workers, peasants, and cadres. S: What is the possibility of the chairman's visit to the United States? Mao: (Tsushima Haide [9]) You invented a way to prolong life in medicine.I am sixty-seven years old, and if my life span is extended to ninety-seven, then I have the hope of visiting the United States. S: I believe that the chairman will not have to wait until he is ninety-seven to visit the United States. Mao: Maybe I am wrong, but you are right.I hope I'm wrong on this point.Things are hard to predict.I did not expect that it would take only four years after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War to win the War of Liberation.At the beginning of the war, we only mentioned protracted war, the protracted nature of the war, and did not dare to mention fighting for several years.After two years of fighting, we can say with certainty that five years of the Liberation War will suffice, and that is counting from July 1946.It turned out to be a victory in three years. S: I remember when I was in security [10], I asked the Chairman how long it would take for the revolution to be victorious. Chairman Mao: At that time there was no such thing as anti-Japanese war. S: I proposed, two years? At that time, the chairman smiled.Later I asked again, five years? Ten years? At that time, the chairman said at least ten years.At that time, I felt that it would mean that I would never win. Mao: You are too impatient.We ended up using it for over twelve years. The semi-colonial and semi-feudal situation in China in the past was really unbearable.I have no industry, so I have to import food, cotton, and industrial products.Seventy percent of the people are very poor, that is, workers, poor peasants, and farm laborers. The revolution mainly depends on these people.Another 20 percent are the petty bourgeoisie in the cities, the middle peasants and the well-to-do middle peasants in the countryside.The remaining 10% or so are landlords, rich peasants, urban bourgeoisie and intellectuals, and these are the main educated people in China.About 10% of the people are literate, that is, the upper petty bourgeoisie and the wealthy middle peasants.Eighty percent of the population used to be illiterate.Of course, illiteracy does not mean that there is no culture. Some of them can make very good handicrafts. The carvings in our room may be done by illiterate people. S: Yes, illiteracy does not mean lack of culture.I think this is the reason why China was able to raise the cultural level of the whole country so rapidly in just ten years.After I returned to China, I found that it was no longer possible to distinguish between farmers, workers, urban residents, students, and people of so-called bourgeois origin. Mao: There are still differences.It can only be said that some changes have been made, and living standards have improved, but there has been no fundamental change.I don't know about the situation of Americans. Europeans eat tens of kilograms of meat every year.The Chinese are basically vegetarians and eat a little meat, but not much.It will take at least several decades to change this situation.It would be great if it could be changed within this century, that is, within the next forty years.If you add the past ten years, it will be fifty years, half a century.It's hard to go fast. S: What the Chairman just said exactly answered a question I wanted to ask.You have changed a lot in the past ten years.According to the current development speed, it may not take that long.Maybe I'm being overly optimistic again in terms of time calculations.So I would like to ask, how long does the Chairman think it will take for China to reach the current level of per capita annual income in the United States? The average annual per capita income in the United States is now 2,000 US dollars, which means about 5,000 yuan. Chairman Mao: That would be difficult to calculate.Whether half a century is enough or not is not yet answered.It has been 185 years since the United States became independent, and it took 185 years to build the United States.Apart from the Anti-British War during the War of Independence[11] and the Civil War between the North and the South[12] for the emancipation of the black slaves, you have experienced no wars in your country.Your place is very good, with good climate and geographical conditions, and you are protected by two oceans.But the main condition is that you drove out the British colonists more than 170 years ago.Another condition is that there has never been feudal landlord ownership in your country. S: For ten years you have been living with great change.You feel that all this is very natural, but you can't feel your own development speed.My situation is different. I left China in the 1940s, and now I am back. For me, the changes are amazing.When writing a report, unless I add a lot of background material, it is difficult to believe what I see. Mao: There have been some changes, but no fundamental changes.The changes in China are mainly in the revolution, and this is a basic change.As far as construction is concerned, it has only just begun.If you speak so miraculously, people will not believe you because it is not true.For example, I saw someone in a foreign newspaper saying that there are no flies or mosquitoes in China now.This is not true. Therefore, it is correct to say that there have been some changes, but it is not true to say that there have been fundamental changes.You say that people's spiritual outlook has changed, which is in line with the facts.As a result of revolutionary work, people have been liberated.As for the second revolution, the industrial revolution or the economic revolution, the past decade has just begun. Our basic situation is poor and white.The so-called poverty is the low standard of living.Why is the standard of living low? Because of the low level of productivity.What is productivity? Besides manpower is machine.Both industry and agriculture should be mechanized and developed simultaneously.The so-called "whiteness" means that illiteracy has not been completely eradicated. It is not only a question of literacy, but also a question of raising the level of science.There are a lot of science projects that we haven't started working on yet.Therefore, we say that we are a poor and white country.However, compared with Chiang Kai-shek's reign, we are a step forward.It's better than Chiang Kai-shek's time, but it doesn't solve the problem.How much time will it take? Several five-year plans will be needed to basically solve the problems of mechanization and the expansion of industry and agriculture.Therefore, we say that China has made progress and made some initial achievements, but it has not fundamentally changed China's economic outlook.It will take a long time to fundamentally change the face of China's economy. S: I also want to ask a question.In another ten to twenty years, you will reach the goal of industrialization.By that time, the economic foundations of the world will be greatly changed due to the widespread application of atomic energy and electronics.Of course by that time, or much earlier than that time, China will also have atomic energy.Some Americans believe that it will be in the distant future that China will obtain atomic energy.On the other hand, they are afraid that once China has an atomic bomb, it will immediately use it irresponsibly. Mao: No.Where can we throw the atomic bomb around? If we have one, we can't throw it around, because throwing it around is a crime. S: Although there is no peace treaty and agreement between China and the United States, although some Americans believe that the United States and China are actually in a state of semi-war, the peace of the world depends on China's sense of responsibility every day.This sense of responsibility is firstly for the Chinese people, and secondly for the whole world, of which China is a part.Do you agree with me? Mao: Yes.Regardless of whether the United States recognizes us or not, whether we enter the United Nations or not, we must bear the responsibility for world peace.We won't be lawless just because we don't join the United Nations, like Monkey King havoc in heaven.We want to maintain world peace and not fight a world war.We advocate that countries should not use war to solve problems.However, not only China has the responsibility to maintain world peace, but also the United States.Resolving the Taiwan issue is China's internal affair, and we must insist on this.Even so, we don't fight.The Americans are there, shall we fight? We will not fight.After the Americans leave, do we have to fight? Not necessarily.We will use peaceful means to resolve the Taiwan issue.Many places in our country have been resolved through peaceful means.Beijing resolved it peacefully, as did Hunan, Yunnan, and Xinjiang.There is a saying outside that it seems that among the Communist parties in various countries, the Chinese Communist Party is particularly naughty, unruly, unreasonable, and acting recklessly.You've been here for a few months, so you can't believe everything you say.You said that some people outside said that China is a big barracks and a big prison.It is indeed true to say this about Chiang Kai-shek's China. At that time, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai were indeed barracks.After liberation, through transformation and education, China was very different. S: I can indeed say that my impression is that China is very different now than it used to be. Published based on the transcript of the conversation kept by the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] Snow, namely Edgar Snow (1905-1972), American progressive writer and journalist.In 1936, he visited the revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi, and Mao Zedong met him.In 1937, "Red Stars Shine on China" was published (in 1938 when Fushe published the Chinese translation, the title of the book was changed to "Westward Journey").After the founding of New China, he visited China three times in 1960, 1964 and 1970. [2] Kennedy (1917-1963), an American Democrat, was a U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate at the time. [3] Nixon (1913-1994), an American Republican, was the Vice President of the United States at the time and the Republican presidential candidate. [4] Eisenhower, then President of the United States. [5] Refers to the China-U.S. ambassadorial meeting, see note [8] on page 64 of this volume. [6] Refers to "Abandon Illusion, Prepare for Struggle" ("Selected Works of Mao Zedong", Volume Four, People's Publishing House, 1991 edition, pp. 1483-1489). [7] In June 1935, after the Long March of the First and Fourth Front Armies of the Red Army joined forces in the Maogong (now Xiaojin) area of ​​Sichuan, Zhang Guotao served as the general political commissar of the Red Army.He opposed the Central Committee's decision on the Red Army going north, led his troops south without authorization, carried out activities to split the party and the Red Army, and established a separate Central Committee.In June 1936, it was forced to abolish the Second Central Committee, and then went northward with the Red Army's Second and Fourth Front Armies, and arrived in northern Shaanxi in December.In April 1938, he escaped from the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and joined the Kuomintang spy group, becoming a traitor to the Chinese revolution. [8] The Second Red Army and the Sixth Red Army led by He Long and Ren Bishi went through the Long March and joined forces with the Fourth Red Army in Ganzi in July 1936.The Central Revolutionary Military Commission ordered the Second Red Army, the Sixth Army and the Thirty-second Red Army to be combined into the Second Red Army, with He Long as the commander-in-chief and Ren Bishi as the political commissar. [9] Ma Haide (1901-1988), originally from Lebanon, was born in the United States.In 1933, he came to China to engage in medical work.In 1936, he arrived at the revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi.After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as a consultant to the Ministry of Health. [10] Security, now Zhidan County. [11] The War of Independence refers to the war in which the people of the thirteen colonies in North America overthrew the British colonial rule and fought for independence from 1775 to 1783.In May 1775, the colonial representatives held a meeting and appointed Washington as the commander-in-chief of the colonial anti-British army, and issued the "Declaration of Independence" in 1776.In 1783, the two sides signed the "Paris Peace Treaty", officially recognizing the independence of the thirteen colonies from Britain. [12] The Civil War was a bourgeois-democratic revolutionary war caused by the contradiction between plantation slavery in the southern United States and the bourgeois wage labor system in the north from 1861 to 1865.During the war, President Lincoln of the federal government, who represented the interests of the bourgeoisie in the north, promulgated the Homestead Act and the Emancipation Proclamation, and took other democratic measures, arousing the revolutionary fighting spirit of workers, farmers and blacks. won the war.