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That Mao Tse-tung owes his rise to power to the support of the Chinese peasantry is an obvious and undisputed fact. The oldest controversy regarding his career concerns the degree of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy which can be attributed to such a peasant-based revolution in an agrarian country. Considerable attention has also been devoted to the guerrilla methods by which this revolution was carried out, and to the relative importance of the appeals of nationalism and of social justice in Tallying the peasants to Mao's banner. The fact that Mao himself has his roots among the Chinese peasantry has, of course, not been overlooked, but it has been considered primarily in the light of the advantages which Mao drew from this background in understanding and manipulating the peasantry. There is not the least doubt that Mao, who has been a Marxist revolutionary for some forty-five years, has endeavoured throughout his political career to exploit his knowledge of the Chinese masses in order to lead them towards goals lying partly outside their tradition-bound universe. But at the same time, he has, even yet, not totally transcended the inheritance of his youth although he is making a furious effort to do so through the current “cultural revolution.” When the patterns of his thought and action were taking shape, roughly in the decade 1926–36, he was still closer to his origins. It is therefore imperative to study not only what Mao Tse-tung has done with (or to) the Chinese peasantry, but what he owes to the fact that he was originally a part of it.
That Mao Tse-tung owes his rise to power to the support of the Chinese peasantry is an obvious and undisputed fact. The oldest controversy regarding his career concerns the degree of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy which can be attributed to such a peasant-based revolution in an agrarian country. Considerable attention has also been devoted to the guerrilla methods by which this revolution was carried out, and to the relative importance of the appeals of nationalism and of social justice in Tallying the peasants to Mao's banner. The fact that Mao himself has his roots among the Chinese peasantry has, of course, not been overlooked, but it has been considered primarily in the light of the advantages which Mao drew from this background in understanding and manipulating the peasantry. There is not the least doubt that Mao, who has been a Marxist revolutionary for some forty-five years, has endeavoured throughout his political career to exploit his knowledge of the Chinese masses in order to lead them towards goals lying partly outside their tradition-bound universe. But at the same time, he has, even yet, not totally transcended the inheritance of his youth although he is making a furious effort to do so through the current “cultural revolution.” When the patterns of his thought and action were taking shape, roughly in the decade 1926–36, he was still closer to his origins. It is therefore imperative to study not only what Mao Tse-tung has done with (or to) the Chinese peasantry, but what he owes to the fact that he was originally a part of it.
Mass line leadership (similar to Lewinian "democratic" leadership and involving operant conditioning) played a critical part in Chinese Communist practice and its success in changing China. Mass line leadership, which may lead to thought reform, was implemented in small study groups by consciousness raising, study/thought revealing, and self-criticism/criticism. Mass line leadership and thought reform have roots in Chinese heritage and in the USSR, but also have significant new and unprecedented aspects.An earlier version of this article was prepared as part of a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar at the University of Chicago entitled "Perspectives on Chinese History," under the direction of Ping-ti Ho. Most of the present version was written while the author was studying at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center as part of a fellowship leave from Kingsborough Community College.
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