Yesterday in my Chinese politics class we discussed Marxist ideology in general and Mao’s Report on the Hunan Peasant’s Movement in particular.  The aim of the conversation was to come to an understanding of how a foreign ideology might inspire revolutionaries in China in the early twentieth century. And it was a good class; the students came up with some very good points.   But as I was preparing for it (and not getting back to posting on the Chinese New Year – sorry) a thought came to me, a thought that I do not think I had thought quite that way before.

     In adapting Marxist ideas and theories to Chinese circumstances, Mao was acting somewhat (OK, not a whole lot, but somewhat) like a Taoist.

     In the Hunan Report, Mao argues that peasants have a certain revolutionary role and potential, a point that pushed against more orthodox interpretations of Marx.  In the Communist Manifesto (which the students had also read for the class), Marx and Engels refer to "the idiocy of rural life."  Peasants are backward, mired in socio-economic and political circumstances that are not progressive or revolutionary.  Historical change will not be driven from the countryside but from the titanic battle of urban bourgeoisie and proletariat, etc.

     Mao was perfectly aware of this orthodox interpretation.  But he saw the revolutionary potential of the peasantry.  So, he adapted to the circumstances before him.  He did not attempt to make the peasants into something they were not (not yet at least) but, rather, he looked to change the Party’s revolutionary strategy in light of the context he found himself in.

    Adapting to circumstance is rather like following where Way leads, no?  OK, I know I cannot push this too far.  But it is Taoist in the sense that Sun Tzu has a similarly context-dependent orientation.  When, in the Art of War, Sun discusses "ground" – the natural terrain and, I would argue, the broader context of any particular battle – he is suggesting that the first job for any military strategist is to figure out where in Way one is: what the immediate surroundings are, what might be possible in a particular situation, what should be avoided because it is wholly impractical.  Man cannot determine the context, or "ground," but must fit his actions and endeavors to the circumstances.  There is something Taoist about that sensibility, and it is something that comes through in Mao’s Hunan Peasants Report.

      So, one question is: if this is true, how Taoist was Mao?  Not much, I would venture.  And certainly he lost whatever inkling of Taoism he might have had once he gained power, which we can date, perhaps, as early as 1935, when he took control of the Party, or, at least, 1949, when the Party seized state power.   But there might have been a bit of a Taoist in him in his early years, in the same sense that there is a bit of a Taoist in Confucians (at least in their metaphysics), or that there is a bit of Taoism in Chinese culture more generally.  He may have understood himself as a modernizer, and ultimately embraced the Legalism of Qin Shi Huangdi, but maybe he did not transcend his own cultural context as much as he wanted.

      A second point to make about Mao’s fragmentary Taoism is to note the tragedy of its passing.  Once in power, of course, Mao became quite convinced of his transformative powers.  He would no longer follow the impulse that distinguishes the Hunan Report, the willingness to step back and apprehend the context and then work to make what is possible emerge from that context.  No, he would impose his will and his vision and his strategy on China, regardless of circumstance.   And millions and millions of people would die, most horribly in the Great Leap Forward, throughout his rein. 

     Just another sad reminder: better a Taoist than a Legalist.