主题：关于毛的一本新书：《毛真的是恶魔吗？》 -- 细脖大头鬼

貌似也是跟张阿姨的书类似，英文版先出来

贴出来方便以后如果碰到鬼子吹捧张阿姨的时候拿出来五毛一下

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A Critique of J. Chang and J. Halliday’s Book

Mao, the Unknown Story

Jin Xiaoding

Introduction

China’s economic development is one of the most significant events in recent times. It is at least partially the consequence of her social and political evolution/revolution in the past century. If the west wants to understand modern China, it is essential not to misunderstand her founder, Mao. However, the book of J. Chang (JC) and J. Haliday, Mao, the unknown story, is misleading the Western public into profound misunderstanding of Mao, China’s modern history and China itself.

The central theme of the book is to condemn Mao as an evil monster, “as bad as or worse than Hitler”. This claim was immediately accepted by the western media. When the book was first published in UK in June 2005, it was hailed by all major media with great enthusiasm, involving many well known China experts from polity (e.g., C. Pattern, the last British governor of Hong Kong), journalism (e.g., J. Mirsky, the Time’s East Asia editor) and academia (e.g., M. Yahuda, the ex-chairman of the Department of International Relation, London School of Economics). According to these experts, everyone with a reasonable mind should be totally convinced by the book beyond any doubt. On this issue there is a rare harmony in which the voice of the Guardian is indistinguishable from that of the Daily Mail. Within one week, the book jumped to the top position of the non-fiction best selling list. Jung Chang has become the authority on the Chinese history. A person, who asked challenging questions during one of her seminars, was deemed by others as “an obvious Maoist” and could not finish his questions. Some western readers condemned a less complementary comment regarding the book on the Amazon web site as “ugly Chinese propaganda”.

The supporters have such unlimited confidence partially because the book is supposedly the outcome of 10 years of intensive research, based on secret archives and hundreds of interviews in many countries. Unfortunately, a careful reader can see clearly that there are huge gaps between its sensational claims and vast references. Moreover, the evidence in the book often contradicts, rather than supports, the claims. This review will point out these contradictions and inconsistencies which may have escaped most Western readers’ eyes and been ignored by the Western media.

To reveal the overall quality of the book, we take on its 17 major claims, which are evenly distributed across Mao’s life. Instead of picking up its weaknesses or minor points, we focus on those issues, which tarnish Mao’s character most and are praised most highly in the Western media as solidly proven. These issues are dealt within 17 sections:

1. The Purge in the Ruijin Base, 2. Chiang Let the Reds Go (I)

3. Chiang Let the Reds Go (II) 4. The Fake Battle at the Luding Bridge,

5. Mao Carried through the Long March, 6. Mao Did Not Fight Japanese,

7. The Trap for the New 4th Army, 8. Mao Sacrificed His Brother Tse-min,

9. The Rectification Campaign, 10. Opium Sale,

11. 3 Million Deaths in 1950-51, 12. 27 Million Deaths in Jails/Labor Camps,

13. The Superpower Program, 14. 38 Million Deaths in 1958-61,

15. 3 Million Deaths in 1966-76, 16. Mao’s Aim of the Cultural Revolution,

17. Mao Compared with Hitler.

This review has been sent to many Western media since early August 2005, but received no response. Nevertheless, it is not the only negative review on JC’s book. Four months after its first publication, critical voices began to emerge from outside of Europe. For instance, in an article in the New York Review, J. Spence of Yale University singles out two false stories in the book. In the New York Times, a former correspondent in Beijing N. Kristof reveals that one of alleged interviewees listed in the book, Zhang Hanzhi denies that she had ever been interviewed by the authors. An Australian H. McDonald reveals in The Age that a recent visit by reporters to Luding Bridge confirms the battle 70 years ago, which JC claims to be a complete invention. He quoted from T. Bernstein of Columbia University that "the book is a major disaster for the contemporary China field". Also, “Princeton's Perry Link have felt compelled to criticise" JC’s “factual errors and dubious use of sources”. Moreover, “many scholars point out that much of what Chang and Halliday present as a previously ‘unknown story’ has in fact been exposed long ago. . . . But no credit is given to these earlier writers”. In London Review of Books, A. Nathan of Columbia University provides plenty of evidence showing that “Chang and Halliday are magpies: every bright piece of evidence goes in, no matter where it comes from or how reliable it is”.

This review differs from those of Western writers in two aspects. First, it shows the total fallacy of the book, instead of just a few inaccuracies. Secondly, it demonstrates the book’s major flaws without substantial references regarding Chinese history, only using the information of an elementary level. In fact the information and references mainly come from the book itself. In so doing, the review raises a further question: why did most media and experts in the UK fail to see these obvious inconsistencies and contradictions in the book? If it cannot be excused by the ignorance of Chinese history, it has to be explained by the profound pride and prejudice towards China.

Although this review met absolute silence in the west, it has drawn some attention from overseas Chinese. One of the web sites, which published this review, Duowei, interviewed Jung Chang in New York in October 2005, and asked her my questions (see the article at: http://blog.chinesenewsnet.com/?p=3467, or the entire interview video at: http://www.berm.co.nz/cgi-bin/video/play.cgi?lz1JaUtTdSM). This is what Jung Chang said about this review: “I have read it, and read carefully. Some questions are quite good. I do hope to have opportunities to answer them. I think it is very important. However, there are many issues, I do not know either he did not understand English, or did not look at the references provided at the back of the book. There are many details, the origins of the figures, all in the back of the book. Among 800 pages, there are 150 pages of references, the sources of the references. One has to read those sources from the references. I think he either did not understand English, or did not read references carefully. I have looked at his questions, and can give easy answers to all of them”.

In the interview, Jung Chang indeed responded to three of my 17 questions, namely, (2), (3) and (4). A reader can look at the paragraphs marked by * signs below, in each of the three sections to appreciate her “easy answers”.

After the appearance of this review, Jung Chang’s brother, Pu Zhang (a translator for the Chinese version of the book), claims in October 2005 on the Duowei web site that, my Chinese translation seriously distorted JC’s words, and he would post the direct comparison of the original text and my translation on the web for readers to see the difference. However, despite readers repeatedly asked him to keep his promises, his English-Chinese comparison has not be seen anywhere so far.

1. The Purge in the Ruijin Base

JC’s first major accusation against Mao is that his purge in the Ruijin base, the first Red State in China, caused more than 350,000 deaths, or 10% of the total population. Her figure is grossly exaggerated because she assumes the reduction of 0.7 million in Ruijin’s population was the result of people either being killed in battles or dying of persecution under Mao. She ignores civilian deaths and emigration completely.

From 1931–35, “the population of Red Jiangxi fell by more than half a million. . . . The fall in Red Fujian was comparable. . . . . Altogether some 700,000 people died in the Ruijin base” (p. 113). JC apparently deduces this figure from the population ratio of Red Jiangxi to that of Red Fujian. But from her “half a million” population reduction in Jiangxi, we should get Ruijin’s 700,000 population reduction, not deaths.

Then, as “238,844 people in Jiangxi were counted as ‘revolutionary martyrs’, i.e., people who had been killed in wars and intra-party purges” (p. 114 fn), JC uses the population ratio again to get the total number of martyrs in the whole of Ruijin, which is 238,884×700,000/500,000 = 334,438. The rest of the reduction in population, 700,000 – 334,438 = 365,562, i.e., “More than half”, she concludes, “were murdered as ‘class enemies’, or were worked to death, or committed suicide, or died other premature deaths attributable to the regime” (pp. 113-114).

This calculation is not professional. First, it ignores civilian deaths caused by the war, through killing, illness, economic hardship and starvation etc, which often account for a larger part of the loss of life in long lasting wars. During that period Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek launched five “annihilation expeditions” against Ruijin, one of which involved “half a million troops” (p. 125). At one time the Ruijin base “had been reduced to a mere several dozen square kilometers” (p. 103) from “50,000 sq. km” (p.104). So most of the area of the base had been occupied by Chiang’s army.

Many people cooperated with the communists, even “children were used as sentries, and formed into harassment squads, called ‘humiliation teams’ to hound people into joining the army” (p. 110). Chiang’s army was not known for treating civilians with mercy. Even before the Red state came into existence, “tens of thousands of Communists and suspects were slaughtered” during Chiang’s campaign in 1927 (p. 47). Given all these factors, civilian deaths must have been significant.

Secondly, JC’s calculation ignores emigration out of the Ruijin area, which should be expected after five annihilation expeditions in five years. Especially, we are told that Mao’s policy in the Red base ‘was to confiscate every last single thing’ (p. 111), and “China’s first Red state was run by terror and guarded like a prison.” (p. 113). In that case, people should have escaped from Mao’s hell when Chiang’s army liberated them five times. So the number of refugees must have been significant too.

If we assume that the sum of civilian deaths and refugees together is roughly the same as the number of martyrs, there would be far fewer left who were “murdered as ‘class enemies’, or were worked to death, or committed suicide, or died other premature deaths attributable to the regime”. The number would be 700,000 – 334,438×2 = 31,124, less than 10% of JC’s figure.

2. Chiang Let the Reds Go (I)

JC’s second major discovery is to deny Mao’s contribution to the Red Army’s survival during the Long March. She argues that, it is Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek who let the Red Army go because he wanted an excuse to send his own army into Guichou and Sichuan. She gives no evidence for this. Instead, by her own account, Chiang did not need to use Mao’s army as his excuse because a strong Red Army had already been settled in Sichuan for nearly three years before Mao’s arrival.

“There can be no doubt that Chiang let the CCP leadership and the main force of the Red Army escape”. “He wanted to drive the Red Army into these hold-out provinces, so that their warlords would be so frightened of the Reds settling in their territory that they would allow Chiang’s army in to drive the Reds out” (p.137).

JC’s reference does support the well known fact that Chiang considered his entry into Sichuan as a beneficial by-product of his pursuit of the Red Army. But it does not imply Chiang let the Red Army escape. On the contrary, in the autumn of 1932, another CCP leader Chang Kuo-tao had “moved to northern Sichuan, where he built a new and bigger base within a year, and expanded his army to over 80,000. Kuo-tao was undoubtedly the most successful of all the Communists” (pp. 147-148). At the time of Mao’s arrival in Sichuan, Chang Kuo-tao’s 80,000 soldiers “were well fed, well equipped with machine-guns and mortars and ample ammunition, and superbly trained” (p. 163). On the other hand, Mao’s army “was down to some 10,000, . . . The surviving remnant was on the verge of collapse” (p.163).

It seems odd that “the most successful” Chang Kuo-tao’s army of 80,000, after having settled down there for three years, still could not frighten the Sichuan warlords, and Chiang had to use Mao’s army which “was on the verge of collapse”. Why? Without an explanation one certainly has reasons to “doubt that Chiang let the CCP leadership and the main force of the Red Army escape”.

* Facing this question in her interview with Duowei, Jung Chang replied: “This is a good question. But we have studied it already. When Chang Ku-tao entered Sichuan, he was in the north, Chiang Kei-shek indeed wanted to follow. But Sichuan had a regional defense system then, each region had its own warlord, not together, all divided. Chiang Kei-shek drove the Central Red Army from the south into Sichuan. He wanted to conquer the south, the west, the north, also conquer the warlord in the east.”

Then, why did not Chiang Kai-shek drive Chang Kuo-tao from the north to the west, east and south, but had to drive the Central Red Army far away from Jiangxi? JC’s answer immediately leads to almost the same question again. It does not explain anything. Isn’t it too easy to “give easy answers” just like this?