主题：茗谈（五十四）：库松演义第三回-1 -- 本嘉明

The text below is based on exclusive interviews conducted by the Harvard Asia Quarterly with Professor Roderick MacFarquhar in spring 2010 and spring 2011, respectively. In accordance with the interviews, it is divided into two parts. In Part I, we solicit MacFarquhar’s general opinions on Chinese politics since 1949, placing especial emphasis on the Maoist legacy and the enduring rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In Part II, MacFarquhar discusses his personal biography, including his time in military service, journalism, British politics, and academia.

Part I: Reflections on Chinese Politics

The Maoist Legacy

Harvard Asia Quarterly: How would you characterize Chairman Mao Zedong as a person?

Roderick MacFarquhar: Well I think that Mao was obviously, as many Chinese colleagues have suggested, very much a romantic revolutionary in the sense that he was not a cold, precise planner like Stalin or Lenin. He was someone who reveled in upheaval, because he became revolutionary in the upheaval. And to be fair, he was involved in upheaval himself as a young man in the Autumn Harvest Uprising. But later on, after 1949, when there was upheaval he was far distant from it; he started it, but was not directly involved in it, which was convenient. But I think that as a politician he was, to put it mildly, devious – maybe all politicians are devious, but I think that the way the Gao Gang episode was played by the Chairman, the way that he reneged on his Hundred Flowers promise in 1957 and launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and most important, the Cultural Revolution when he purged senior leaders who had been with him for thirty or forty years – in order to do that, he was very devious. So I think a manipulative, devious politician in terms of his interaction with his colleagues, but in terms of the Revolution in general much more of a romantic, with a belief in the “human wave” tactics of revolution.

As an ordinary person, it is very difficult to separate out his revolutionary persona. But again, he was clearly in some sense of the word a romantic because he got very attached to Zhang Yufang, a young woman he took into his household who he trusted tremendously. The story is that on one occasion, they had a quarrel and she left, and that he would have gone to any lengths to bring her back. In fact, his aide Wang Luqing, was able to persuade her to come back; otherwise, it is unclear what Mao would have done to get her back.

But on the other hand, he seems to have been able to distance himself from the normal emotions of a husband and a father. Clearly, there was some form of a love life with Jiang Qing way back in the Yan’an days. When that faded, one doesn’t exactly know. But he had no compunction about abandoning women who were wives officially or not. And he does not seem to have been – I say “seem” because one can’t tell this from afar – a particularly caring father. But one doesn’t really know these intimate things. One would probably have to have a long session with one of his daughters. Of course, his son died in Korea. But someone who was able – perhaps you’d say all revolutionaries, perhaps you’d say many, perhaps all leaders have to – to distance himself to some extent from ordinary human emotions in order to do his job. But he probably did it more than most.

HAQ: Right after Mao died, Deng Xiaoping stated that we should remember Mao as 70 percent right and 30 percent wrong. What percentages would you give him?

RMF: Well, Deng Xiaoping had to say that. On the one hand, he had to acknowledge that Mao had made a big mistake in launching the Cultural Revolution because that was such a devastating period. On the other hand, he had to preserve Mao’s name and reputation in general, because it was essential to the legitimacy of the whole Chinese Revolution. That’s why his picture is still up on Tiananmen. I would put it the other way around – 70 percent error, and 30 percent, from the Chinese point of view, okay.

Thirty percent would be his great achievement in leading the Communist Revolution to victory, and for the first time, really, in a century, giving China a united and peaceful country. So that was a very big achievement. But after that, I would be much more critical than Deng could be. Of course, Deng supported many things that Mao did. For instance, even in the early years, if he had persisted with new democracy, which he proclaimed before the Chinese Communists came to power, and which Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai wished to pursue, then you would not have had these terrible campaigns in the 1950s: the two campaigns against counter-revolution; land reform with all the bloodshed, there should have been land reform but the bloodshed was unnecessary; the Three-Anti and Five-Anti Campaigns against corruption; the reform of intellectuals. All these campaigns caused many, many [deaths] – the exact figure we don’t know, the figure we have is Mao’s figure, which says that something like 800,000 people died or were executed as a result of these campaigns.

Even those campaigns pale in significance to the size of the Great Leap Forward, where anywhere between thirty and forty plus million people died who should not have died. It was the result of Mao’s romanticism about what could be achieved by just hard hand labor of the peasantry, and his refusal to accept criticisms of Defense Minister Peng Dehuai midway through the Great Leap. The result was many deaths. Then of course came the Cultural Revolution, in which probably not nearly as many people died as during the Great Leap famine, but the whole country was thrown into a terrible upheaval, and the unity and peace which Mao and the PLA and the Party had brought to China in 1949 were totally disrupted. For ten years!

So I would say 30-70: 30 percent for leading China through the Revolution and bringing China together as a united, strongly led, peaceful country; 70 percent for all the damage he did to that victory afterwards.

通宝推：本嘉明,

复感觉马若德的文革研究也有点表面化-材料整理不等于分析到位

家园

我觉得还不如葡萄的高度

有点，照不少毛派的观点，"邓派史观"

复本大的这个帖子很说明问题！

家园

作为一个传统的中国人

对于细节大而化之简直已经想呼吸一样自觉了

先花后收藏留着自勉

复感觉马若德的文革研究也有点表面化-材料整理不等于分析到位

家园

他如果是研究文革史的

说这句

because that was such a devastating period.

就是学术道德不过关了。这种sweeping statement，通常只出现在宣传中的。

西方话语，他们要搞的一个东西就是把文革assume成一个黑暗时期。任何一个号称学者的，你只要看他对文革的态度（注意，不是说评价），就知道这个人究竟是真的学者还是美宣部的喉舌了。

复哈佛的课网上没找到, 别的IVY课程

家园

这个core网站很不错

视频流畅，中文翻译也很不错。尤其是很多翻译是由国内的本科生研究生完成的，英语的水准算是很过硬了。现在人才太多了。

我建议大家周末有空就看一集，比连续剧好看多了，即便是听听教授们的美式英文，也算一种享受吧。

我去注册，居然发现有人把“本嘉明”给注册掉了。算不算侵权？我只好注册了一个“老本嘉明”。也亏来得不算晚，不然可能要注册个“正宗唯一真正原始老本嘉明”，每次登录会比较凄惨。

复 1988年哈佛的大二生听这个课

家园

中国有西西河网络论坛的威力和效率是课堂没法比的

当年美国的土包子真懂大英帝国的深谋远虑？

大势之前，一切皆是尘土

复感觉马若德的文革研究也有点表面化-材料整理不等于分析到位

家园

PK下迈斯纳，费正清

这位马若德是政治圈里打滚出来的，政治嗅觉应该不在话下。但是他对中国三千年历史的积淀，传统文化价值的理解有多少？没读过他的书，但感觉他比较纠结细节，有点见树不见林，得出来的结论就是老毛是玩权术入魔的一个封建帝王。不过这人治学态度看来是严谨的，立场也是中间派实用主义，不是张戎之流可比。

Mao's Last Revolution

对比的是葡萄大力推荐的迈斯纳（Maurice Meisner）-还没机会看，但是从书评看来很接近葡大写 WG经济的那些帖子：左派观点，宏观经济分析。

Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic

另外最近看了老掌门费正清的遗作 China: A New History。此人是少数影响政策，留名青史的历史学者之一，当初49年前就押宝老毛，被老蒋记恨数十年。本大有空可以好好挖挖他的故事。这里他用大历史的路子重新梳理了一遍中国史，但是主要的亮点是受到64刺激，对毛时代的观点大幅向右修正，回到了接近三七开的“主流”观点。

08年以来时势大变，汉学和近代史学也到了重新回顾评价的时候。很好奇现在学术界的风向。不知道南渝霜华和liminqi几位能聊聊吗？

这栋边角楼该搬到青史版啦。

复原来元帅也能喝高啊

家园

不是喝高了

这实际上是外交上的常用策略，先由一个有一定敏感程度，但没有外交权限的人士探口风。既可以表达己方意见，也不至于一下子闹得太正式。如果对方有兴趣，接下来大家接着谈，成为一个“良好的开始”。如果没兴趣甚至反对，不过是一个“个人意见”收场。这个话题苏联人太过分，但这个策略本身经常运用在正常外交交涉中。再倒过来看，苏联人更过分。