Mao Zedong Quotes
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Mao Zedong , also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who became the founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he ruled as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. His theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao was the son of a wealthy farmer in Shaoshan, Hunan. He had a Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. He later adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University, and became a founding member of the Communist Party of China , leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the CPC, Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land policies, and ultimately became head of the CPC during the Long March. Although the CPC temporarily allied with the KMT under the United Front during the Second Sino-Japanese War , China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender and in 1949 Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan.

On October 1, 1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the People's Republic of China , a single-party state controlled by the CPC. In the following years he solidified his control through land reforms and through a psychological victory in the Korean War, as well as through campaigns against landlords, people he termed "counter-revolutionaries", and other perceived enemies of the state. In 1957 he launched a campaign known as the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial. This campaign led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of an estimated minimum of 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. In 1966, Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution, a program to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements in Chinese society which lasted 10 years and was marked by violent class struggle, widespread destruction of cultural artifacts, and an unprecedented elevation of Mao's cult of personality. The program is now officially regarded as a "severe setback" for the PRC. In 1972, Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing, signalling the start of a policy of opening China to the world. After years of ill health, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82. He was succeeded as paramount leader by Premier Hua Guofeng, who was quickly sidelined and replaced by Deng Xiaoping.

A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important and influential individuals in modern world history. He is also known as a political intellect, theorist, military strategist, poet, and visionary. Supporters credit him with driving imperialism out of China, modernising the nation and building it into a world power, promoting the status of women, improving education and health care, as well as increasing life expectancy as China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million under his leadership. Conversely, his regime has been called autocratic and totalitarian, and condemned for bringing about mass repression and destroying religious and cultural artifacts and sites. It was additionally responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 30 to 70 million victims.

✵ 26. December 1893 – 9. September 1976
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong: 181   quotes 18   likes

Mao Zedong Quotes

“Our agrarian revolution has been a process in which the landlord class owning the land is transformed into a class that has lost its land, while the peasants who once lost their land are transformed into small holders who have acquired land, and it will be such a process once again. In given conditions having and not having, acquiring and losing, are interconnected; there is identity of the two sides. Under socialism, private peasant ownership is transformed into the public ownership of socialist agriculture; this has already taken place in the Soviet Union, as it will take place everywhere else. There is a bridge leading from private property to public property, which in philosophy is called identity, or transformation into each other, or interpenetration.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 我们实行过的土地革命,已经是并且还将是这样的过程,拥有土地的地主阶级转化为失掉土地的阶级,而曾经是失掉土地的农民却转化为取得土地的小私有者。有无、得失之间,因一定条件而互相联结,二者具有同一性。在社会主义条件之下,农民的私有制又将转化为社会主义农业的公有制,苏联已经这样做了,全世界将来也会这样做。私产和公产之间有一条由此达彼的桥梁,哲学上名之曰同一性,或互相转化、互相渗透。

“The state system, a joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes and the system of government, democratic centralism--these constitute the politics of New Democracy, the republic of New Democracy, the republic of the anti-Japanese united front, the republic of the new Three People's Principles with their Three Great Policies' the Republic of China in reality as well as in name. Today we have a Republic of China in name but not in reality, and our present task is to create the reality that will fit the name.”

On New Democracy (1940)
Original: (zh-CN) 国体——各革命阶级联合专政。政体——民主集中制。这就是新民主主义的政治,这就是新民主主义的共和国,这就是抗日统一战线的共和国,这就是三大政策的新三民主义的共和国,这就是名副其实的中华民国。我们现在虽有中华民国之名,尚无中华民国之实,循名责实,这就是今天的工作。

“For many years we Communists have struggled for a cultural revolution as well as for a political and economic revolution, and our aim is to build a new society and a new state for the Chinese nation. That new society and new state will have not only a new politics and a new economy but a new culture. In other words, not only do we want to change a China that is politically oppressed and economically exploited into a China that is politically free and economically prosperous, we also want to change the China which is being kept ignorant and backward under the sway of the old culture into an enlightened and progressive China under the sway of a new culture. In short, we want to build a new China. Our aim in the cultural sphere is to build a new Chinese national culture.”

We Want to Build a New China
On New Democracy (1940)
Original: (zh-CN) 我们共产党人,多年以来,不但为中国的政治革命和经济革命而奋斗,而且为中国的文化革命而奋斗;一切这些的目的,在于建设一个中华民族的新社会和新国家。在这个新社会和新国家中,不但有新政治、新经济,而且有新文化。这就是说,我们不但要把一个政治上受压迫、经济上受剥削的中国,变为一个政治上自由和经济上繁荣的中国,而且要把一个被旧文化统治因而愚昧落后的中国,变为一个被新文化统治因而文明先进的中国。一句话,我们要建立一个新中国。建立中华民族的新文化,这就是我们在文化领域中的目的。

“Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together?”

On Guerilla Warfare http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch06.htm (1937), Chapter 6 - "The Political Problems of Guerilla Warfare"
This is usually aphorized as "The people are the sea that the revolutionary swims in," or an equivalent.

“As regards the sequence in the movement of man's knowledge, there is always a gradual growth from the knowledge of individual and particular things to the knowledge of things in general. Only after man knows the particular essence of many different things can he proceed to generalization and know the common essence of things.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 就人类认识运动的秩序说来,总是由认识个别的和特殊的事物,逐步地扩大到认识一般的事物。人们总是首先认识了许多不同事物的特殊的本质,然后才有可能更进一步地进行概括工作,认识诸种事物的共同的本质。

“If the U. S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.”

Chapter 6 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch06.htm, originally published in Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)

“Now, there are two different attitudes towards learning from others. One is the dogmatic attitude of transplanting everything, whether or not it is suited to our conditions. This is no good. The other attitude is to use our heads and learn those things that suit our conditions, that is, to absorb whatever experience is useful to us. That is the attitude we should adopt.”

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 学习有两种态度。一种是教条主义的态度,不管我国情况,适用的和不适用的,一起搬来。这种态度不好。另一种态度,学习的时候用脑筋想一下,学那些和我国情况相适合的东西,即吸取对我们有益的经验,我们需要的是这样一种态度

“In ordinary circumstances, contradictions among the people are not antagonistic. However, if they are not handled properly, or if we relax our vigilance and lower our guard, antagonism may arise. In a socialist country, a development of this kind is usually only a localized and temporary phenomenon. The reason is that the system of exploitation of man by man has been abolished and the interests of the people are the same.”

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 在一般情况下,人民内部的矛盾不是对抗性的。但是如果处理得不适当,或者失去警觉,麻痹大意,也可能发生对抗。这种情况,在社会主义国家通常只是局部的暂时的现象。这是因为社会主义国家消灭了人剥削人的制度,人民的利益在根本上是一致的。

“In seeking victory, those who direct a war cannot overstep the limitations imposed by the objective conditions. Within these limitations, however, they can and must play a dynamic role in striving for victory. The stage of action for commanders in a war must be built upon objective possibilities, but on that stage they can direct the performance of many a drama, full of sound and color, power and grandeur.”

On Protracted Warfare (1938)
Original: (zh-CN) 指导战争的人们不能超越客观条件许可的限度期求战争的胜利,然而可以而且必须在客观条件的限度之内,能动地争取战争的胜利。战争指挥员活动的舞台,必须建筑在客观条件的许可之上,然而他们凭借这个舞台,却可以导演出很多有声有色、威武雄壮的戏剧来。

“Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution.”

谁是我们的敌人?谁是我们的朋友?这个问题是革命的首要问题.
Shéi shì wǒmen de dírén? Shéi shì wǒmen de péngyǒu? Zhège wèntí shì gémìng de shǒuyào wèntí.
Chapter 2 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch02.htm, originally published in Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society (March 1926), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 1.
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)

“Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.”

Concluding Paragraph
On Practice (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 通过实践而发现真理,又通过实践而证实真理和发展真理。从感性认识而能动地发展到理性认识,又从理性认识而能动地指导革命实践,改造主观世界和客观世界。实践、认识、再实践、再认识,这种形式,循环往复以至无穷,而实践和认识之每一循环的内容,都比较地进到了高一级的程度。这就是辩证唯物论的全部认识论,这就是辩证唯物论的知行统一观。

“What we need is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind, and intense but orderly work.”

"Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch22.htm, (December 1936), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 211.

“Without a People's army, the people have nothing.”

Chapter 9 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch09.htm, originally published in On Coalition Government (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, pp. 296-97.
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)

“The contradictions between the enemy and us are antagonistic contradictions. Within the ranks of the people, the contradictions among the working people are non-antagonistic, while those between the exploited and the exploiting classes have a non-antagonistic aspect in addition to an antagonistic aspect.”

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 敌我之间的矛盾是对抗性的矛盾。人民内部的矛盾,在劳动人民之间说来,是非对抗性的;在被剥削阶级和剥削阶级之间说来,除了对抗性的一面以外,还有非对抗性的一面。

“"You are dictatorial." My dear sirs, you are right, that is just what we are. All the experience the Chinese people have accumulated through several decades teaches us to enforce the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, to deprive the reactionaries of the right to speak and let the people alone have that right.”

The People's Democratic Dictatorship, speech (30 June 1949) commemorating the 28th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party
Original: (zh-CN) “你们独裁。”可爱的先生们,你们讲对了,我们正是这样。中国人民在几十年中积累起来的一切经验,都叫我们实行人民民主专政,或曰人民民主独裁,总之是一样,就是剥夺反动派的发言权,只让人民有发言权。

“As already mentioned, so long as classes exist, contradictions between correct and incorrect ideas in the Communist Party are reflections within the Party of class contradictions. At first, with regard to certain issues, such contradictions may not manifest themselves as antagonistic. But with the development of the class struggle, they may grow and become antagonistic. The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union shows us that the contradictions between the correct thinking of Lenin and Stalin and the fallacious thinking of Trotsky, Bukharin and others did not at first manifest themselves in an antagonistic form, but that later they did develop into antagonism.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 共产党内正确思想和错误思想的矛盾,如前所说,在阶级存在的时候,这是阶级矛盾对于党内的反映。这种矛盾,在开始的时候,或在个别的问题上,并不一定马上表现为对抗性的。但随着阶级斗争的发展,这种矛盾也就可能发展为对抗性的。苏联共产党的历史告诉我们:列宁、斯大林的正确思想和托洛茨基、布哈林等人的错误思想的矛盾,在开始的时候还没有表现为对抗的形式,但随后就发展为对抗的了。中国共产党的历史也有过这样的情形。我们党内许多同志的正确思想和陈独秀、张国焘等人的错误思想的矛盾,在开始的时候也没有表现为对抗的形式,但随后就发展为对抗的了。目前我们党内的正确思想和错误思想的矛盾,没有表现为对抗的形式,如果犯错误的同志能够改正自己的错误,那就不会发展为对抗性的东西。因此,党一方面必须对于错误思想进行严肃的斗争,另方面又必须充分地给犯错误的同志留有自己觉悟的机会。在这样的情况下,过火的斗争,显然是不适当的。但如果犯错误的人坚持错误,并扩大下去,这种矛盾也就存在着发展为对抗性的东西的可能性

“Every difference in men's concepts should be regarded as reflecting an objective contradiction. Objective contradictions are reflected in subjective thinking, and this process constitutes the contradictory movement of concepts, pushes forward the development of thought, and ceaselessly solves problems in man's thinking.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 人的概念的每一差异,都应把它看作是客观矛盾的反映。客观矛盾反映入主观的思想,组成了概念的矛盾运动,推动了思想的发展,不断地解决了人们的思想问题。