2 BECOMING A COMMUNIST
2 与共产党结缘
(1911–20 AGE 17–26)
1911～1920 年 17～26 岁
MAO ARRIVED IN CHANGSHA in spring 1911, on the eve of the Republican Revolution that was to end over two thousand years of imperial rule. Though Changsha seemed “just like a mediaeval town” to the British philosopher Bertrand Russell a decade later, with “narrow streets … no traffic possible except sedan chairs and rickshaws,” it was not merely in touch with new ideas and trends, it seethed with Republican activity.
一九一一年春天，毛泽东到长沙，正是结束中国两千多年帝制的辛亥革命前夜。表面看去，照英国哲学家罗素(Bertrand Russell)的描述，长沙“简直就是个中世纪的城市，只能走轿子和人力车”。但这里不仅充满新思想，新风气，而且酝酿着共和革命的风潮。
The Manchu court had promised a constitutional monarchy, but the Republicans were dedicated to getting rid of the Manchus entirely. To them Manchu rule was “foreign” domination, as the Manchus were not Han Chinese, the ethnic group that formed the bulk—about 94 percent—of the population. The Republicans lit sparks through newspapers and magazines that had sprung up all over China in the previous decade, and through the entirely new practice of public debates, in what had hitherto been an almost totally private society. They formed organizations, and launched several—unsuccessful—armed uprisings.
尽管清廷宣布立宪，革命党人却一心要推翻帝制，说满族是外国人，应该驱逐。报刊杂志此时已数不胜数，他们利用这个条件鼓吹革命，还组织社团，发动了好几起武装起义。
Mao quickly caught up on the issues through newspapers, which he read for the first time now, at the age of seventeen—the start of a lifelong addiction. He wrote his first, rather confused, political essay expressing Republican views, and pasted it up on a wall at his school, in line with the latest trend. Like many other students in the school, he cut off his pigtail, which, as a Manchu custom, was the most obvious symbol of imperial rule. With a friend, he then ambushed a dozen others and forcibly removed their queues with scissors.
十七岁的毛此时第一次看到报纸。他从报纸上了解到反清派别的观点，立即表示赞同。按当时的时尚，他写了篇文章贴在学校墙上，这是他首次发表政见。像许多学生一样，他剪了辫子，并跟朋友一道挥舞剪刀强行剪掉别人的辫子。
Mao quickly caught up on the issues through newspapers, which he read for the first time now, at the age of seventeen—the start of a lifelong addiction. He wrote his first, rather confused, political essay expressing Republican views, and pasted it up on a wall at his school, in line with the latest trend. Like many other students in the school, he cut off his pigtail, which, as a Manchu custom, was the most obvious symbol of imperial rule. With a friend, he then ambushed a dozen others and forcibly removed their queues with scissors.
这年夏天，长沙格外闷热，学生们比天气更热烈的辩论怎样推翻皇上。一次慷慨激昂的演说后，有人把身上的长衫脱了一丢，大叫“快习兵操，准备打仗！”
In October an armed uprising in neighboring Hubei province heralded the Republican Revolution. The Manchu dynasty that had ruled China for over 260 years crumbled, and a republic was declared on 1 January 1912. The child emperor, Pu Yi, abdicated the following month.
十月，邻近的湖北省武昌市爆发了辛亥革命。统治中国二百六十八年的清朝垮台了，中华民国在一九一二年的第一天成立。二月，末代皇帝溥仪退位。握有兵权的袁世凯替下作临时总统不到两个月的孙中山，次年就任大总统。一九一六年袁死后，位于北京的中央政府控制松懈，中国出现军阀各自为政的局面。
Yuan Shih-kai, military chief of the country, became the president, succeeding the interim provisional president, Sun Yat-sen. The provinces were controlled by army strongmen with allegiance to Yuan. When Yuan died in 1916, the central government in Peking weakened, and power fragmented to the provincial chiefs, who became semi-independent warlords. Over the following decade, they fought spasmodic wars, which disrupted civilian life in combat zones. But otherwise the warlords left most people relatively unaffected. Indeed, the rather loosely governed fledgling republic opened up all sorts of career opportunities. The young Mao faced a dazzling range of choices—industry, commerce, law, administration, education, journalism, culture, the military. He first enlisted in one of the Republican armies, but left within months, as he did not like the drilling, or chores like carrying water for cooking, which he hired a water vendor to do for him. He decided to go back to school, and scanned the array of advertisements in the papers (the ads, colorful and rather sophisticated, were also a new thing in China). Six institutions drew his attention, including a police college, a law college—and a school that specialized in making soap. He picked a general high school and stayed for six months before boredom drove him out to study by himself in the provincial library.
新生民国带给年轻的毛的，是无数崭新机会。工业、商业、法律、管理、教育、新闻、文化，还有军事，可做的事层出不穷。毛面临着令人眼花缭乱的选择。他先参了军，但出操听口令不是他喜欢做的事，更不用说到城外挑水做饭给长官泡茶。他于是雇了个挑夫帮他挑水。几个月后，他干脆退了伍，决定再回去上学。那时报上满是新鲜动人的广告，好些使他动心，一个是警官学校，一个是法律学校，还有个专教人怎样制造肥皂，使毛发了作肥皂制造家的奇想。毛最后挑了省立第一中学，但只在那里待了半年。他觉得不如自修，于是天天去省立图书馆，一待就是一整天。他第一次读到外国名着的译本，这些书把他的脑子从传统观念的束缚中解脱出来。
At last Mao found something he loved doing. He spent all day there, devouring new books, including translations of Western writings. He said later that he was like a buffalo charging into a vegetable garden and just gobbling down everything that grew. This reading helped free his mind of traditional constraints.
But his father threatened to cut him off unless he got into a proper school, so Mao entered a teacher-training college. It required no tuition fees and offered cheap board and lodging—like other such colleges in those days, as part of China’s efforts to promote education.
但他父亲要他上学，否则拒绝供给他钱，十九岁的毛只好進了湖南省立第一师范。师范学校都不收学费，是那时中国致力于教育的结果。
This was spring 1913, and Mao was nineteen. The college embodied the open-mindedness of the time. Even its building was European style, with romanesque arches and a wide columned porch, and was suitably called yang-lou—“Foreign Building.” The classrooms had smart wooden floors and glass windows. The students were exposed to all sorts of new ideas and encouraged to think freely and organize study groups. They turned out publications about anarchism, nationalism and Marxism, and for a while a portrait of Marx hung in the auditorium. Mao had earlier come across the word “socialism” in a newspaper. Now he encountered “communism” for the first time. It was a period of real “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom”—a phrase Mao invoked for a moment under his own rule later, but without allowing a tiny fraction of the freedom he himself had enjoyed as a young man.
第一师范充满开放的空气，连数学楼也是欧洲式的，长沙人管它叫“洋楼”。教室很洋气，漂亮的地板，窗上装有玻璃。校方让学生有机会接触各种新见解，鼓励他们自由思想，组织不同的学会。学生的出版物有鼓吹无政府主义的、国家主义的、马克思主义的。马克思(Karl Marx)的像还一度挂在大礼堂里。对读报上了瘾的毛已在报章上见过“社会主义”这个词，在这里他又第一次听说了“共产主义”。那时，中国是真正的“百花齐放”。后来毛统治时也用这个词，但他允许的还不及他年轻时万芳丛中的一小片花瓣。
Mao was not a loner, and, like students the world over, he and his friends talked long and hard. The college was situated near the Xiang River, the biggest river in Hunan. Swimming in the Xiang inspired Mao to write a rather flamboyant poem in 1917. In the evenings the friends would go for long walks along its banks, enjoying the sight of junks gliding by the Island of Oranges which was covered with orchards of orange trees. On summer evenings they climbed the hill behind the school and sat arguing deep into the night on the grass where crickets crooned and glow-worms twinkled, ignoring the summons of the bugle to bed.
像全世界的学生一样，毛喜欢无穷无尽地和朋友讨论问题，有时沿湘江漫步，有时爬上校园后面的小山，坐在草丛里辩论到深夜。蟋蟀在身旁一声一声地唱，萤火虫绕着他们一闪一闪地飞，熄灯的钟声响了，他们置之不顾。出门旅行是他们的家常便饭，一转悠就是一个月。农家友善地欢迎他们，供他们吃住，他们以写门联报答。
Mao and his friends also traveled. There was complete freedom of movement, and no need for identity papers. During the summer vacation of 1917, Mao and a friend wandered round the countryside for a month, earning food and shelter from peasants by doing calligraphy to decorate their front doors. On another occasion, Mao and two fellow students walked along a newly built railway, and when dusk descended, knocked on the door of a hilltop monastery overlooking the Xiang River. The monks allowed them to stay the night. After dinner the friends followed the stone steps down to the river for a swim, and then sat on the sandy bank and expounded their views, to the lapping of the waves. The guest room had a veranda, and the friends went on talking in the quiet of the night. One was moved by the loveliness of the still night, and said he wanted to become a monk.
In this and other conversations, Mao poured scorn on his fellow Chinese. “The nature of the people of the country is inertia,” he said. “They worship hypocrisy, are content with being slaves, and narrow-minded.” This was a common enough sentiment among the educated at the time, when people were casting around for explanations for why China had been so easily defeated by foreign powers and was trailing so badly in the modern world. But what Mao said next was uncommon extremism. “Mr. Mao also proposed burning all the collections of prose and poetry after the Tang and Sung dynasties in one go,” a friend wrote in his diary.
一次高谈阔论中，据毛的朋友记载：“毛君主张将唐宋以后之文集诗集，焚诸一炉。”这是有记载的第一次毛提到烧书。当时，这话并不离奇，在前无古人的思想解放气氛中，一切天经地义的道理都受到挑战，历来的大逆不道都成了理所当然。国家有必要存在吗？家庭呢？婚姻呢？私有财产呢？什么样的议论也不奇怪，什么样的话也都能说。
This is the first known occasion when Mao mentioned one theme that was to typify his rule—the destruction of Chinese culture. When he first said it in that moonlit monastery, it had not sounded totally outlandish. At that time of unprecedented personal and intellectual freedom, the freest moment in Chinese history, everything that had been taken for granted was questioned, and what had been viewed as wrong proclaimed as right. Should there be countries? Families? Marriage? Private property? Nothing was too outrageous, too shocking, or unsayable.
IT WAS IN THIS ENVIRONMENT that Mao’s views on morals took shape. In the winter of 1917–18, still a student as he turned twenty-four, he wrote extensive commentaries on a book called A System of Ethics, by a minor late-nineteenth-century German philosopher, Friedrich Paulsen. In these notes, Mao expressed the central elements in his own character, which stayed consistent for the remaining six decades of his life and defined his rule.
正是在这样的氛围里毛泽东形成了他的道德观。二十四岁时，毛在德国哲学家泡尔生(Friedrich Paulsen)所着《伦理学原理》(System der Ethik)中译本上，作了大量批注。在这些批注里。毛直言不讳地表述了他的道德观念。这些观念伴随了他的一生。
Mao’s attitude to morality consisted of one core, the self, “I,” above everything else: “I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one’s action has to be benefiting others. Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others … People like me want to … satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me.”
毛整个道德观的核心是：“我”高于一切。他写道：“道德之价值，必以他人之利害为其行为之动机，吾不以为然。”“吾人欲自尽其性，自完其心，自有最可宝贵之道德律。世界固有人有物，然皆因我而有。”毛的道德等于完全的随心所欲。
Mao shunned all constraints of responsibility and duty. “People like me only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people.” “I am responsible only for the reality that I know,” he wrote, “and absolutely not responsible for anything else. I don’t know about the past, I don’t know about the future. They have nothing to do with the reality of my own self.” He explicitly rejected any responsibility towards future generations. “Some say one has a responsibility for history. I don’t believe it. I am only concerned about developing myself … I have my desire and act on it. I am responsible to no one.”
义务与责任毛概不承认，说：“吾人唯有对于自己之义务，无对于他人之义务也。”“吾只对吾主观客观之现实者负责，非吾主观客观之现实者，吾概不负责焉。既往吾不知，未来吾不知，以与吾个人之现实无关也。”“吾自欲遂行也，向谁负责任？”
Mao did not believe in anything unless he could benefit from it personally. A good name after death, he said, “cannot bring me any joy, because it belongs to the future and not to my own reality.” “People like me are not building achievements to leave for future generations.” Mao did not care what he left behind. He argued that conscience could go to hell if it was in conflict with his impulses:
对毛来说，任何成就只有在现实生活中能享受到才有意义。身后名“非吾之所喜悦，以其属之后来，非吾躬与之现实也。”“吾人并非建功业以遗后世。”毛泽东完全不屑于追求“流芳千古”。
These two should be one and the same. All our actions … are driven by impulse, and the conscience that is wise goes along with this in every instance. Sometimes … conscience restrains impulses such as overeating or over-indulgence in sex. But conscience is only there to restrain, not oppose. And the restraint is for better completion of the impulse.
良心本是对人的冲动的一种心理约束。毛却认为：“良心与冲动理应一致，乃调和的而非冲突的。”“二者原为一物，吾人各种之动作，固处处须冲动，处处系冲动之所驱，良心之明，亦处处承认之。”照这种观点，“良心”只是为毛的“冲动”服务的工具。
As conscience always implies some concern for other people, and is not a corollary of hedonism, Mao was rejecting the concept. His view was: “I do not think these [commands like ‘do not kill,’ ‘do not steal,’ and ‘do not slander’] have to do with conscience. I think they are only out of self-interest for self-preservation.” All considerations must “be purely calculation for oneself, and absolutely not for obeying external ethical codes, or for so-called feelings of responsibility …”
泡尔生说：“毋杀人，毋盗窃，毋欺诬，皆良心中无上之命令。”毛不以为然，说：“此等处吾不认为良心，认为人欲自卫其生而出于利害之观念者。”照毛的意思，人不干这些坏事，只是出于个人利害考虑，要是干了不受惩罚，那就要干。
Absolute selfishness and irresponsibility lay at the heart of Mao’s outlook.
These attributes he held to be reserved for “Great Heroes”—a group to which he appointed himself. For this elite, he said:
Everything outside their nature, such as restrictions and constraints, must be swept away by the great strength in their nature … When Great Heroes give full play to their impulses, they are magnificently powerful, stormy and invincible. Their power is like a hurricane arising from a deep gorge, and like a sex-maniac on heat and prowling for a lover … there is no way to stop them.
The other central element in his character which Mao spelled out now was the joy he took in upheaval and destruction. “Giant wars,” he wrote, “will last as long as heaven and earth and will never become extinct … The ideal of a world of Great Equality and Harmony [da tong, Confucian ideal society] is mistaken.” This was not just the prediction that a pessimist might make; it was Mao’s desideratum, which he asserted was what the population at large wished. “Long-lasting peace,” he claimed:
is unendurable to human beings, and tidal waves of disturbance have to be created in this state of peace … When we look at history, we adore the times of [war] when dramas happened one after another … which make reading about them great fun. When we get to the periods of peace and prosperity, we are bored … Human nature loves sudden swift changes.
MAO SIMPLY COLLAPSED the distinction between reading about stirring events and actually living through cataclysm. He ignored the fact that, for the overwhelming majority, war meant misery. He even articulated a cavalier attitude towards death:
Human beings are endowed with the sense of curiosity. Why should we treat death differently? Don’t we want to experience strange things? Death is the strangest thing, which you will never experience if you go on living … Some are afraid of it because the change comes too drastically. But I think this is the most wonderful thing: where else in this world can we find such a fantastic and drastic change?
Using a very royal “we,” Mao went on: “We love sailing on a sea of upheavals. To go from life to death is to experience the greatest upheaval. Isn’t it magnificent!” This might at first seem surreal, but when later tens of millions of Chinese were starved to death under his rule, Mao told his inner ruling circle it did not matter if people died—and even that death was to be celebrated. As so often, he applied his attitude only to other people, not to himself. Throughout his own life he was obsessed with finding ways to thwart death, doing everything he could to perfect his security and enhance his medical care.
When he came to the question “How do we change [China]?” Mao laid the utmost emphasis on destruction: “the country must be … destroyed and then re-formed.” He extended this line not just to China but to the whole world—and even the universe: “This applies to the country, to the nation, and to mankind … The destruction of the universe is the same … People like me long for its destruction, because when the old universe is destroyed, a new universe will be formed. Isn’t that better!”
毛性格的另一个中心是““破”字当头”， 他说对中国“吾意必须再造之，使其如物质之由毁而成”，而且“国家如此，民族亦然，人类亦然。”， 宇宙之毁也亦然……吾人甚盼望其毁，盖毁旧宇宙而得新宇宙，岂不愈于旧宇宙耶？”
These views, worded so clearly at the age of twenty-four, remained at the core of Mao’s thinking throughout his life. In 1918, he had little prospect of putting them into practice and they had no impact, though he seems to have been someone who made an impression. His teacher Yang Chang-chi wrote of him in his diary of 5 April 1915: “My student Mao Tse-tung said that … his … father was a peasant and is now turning into a merchant … And yet, he [Mao] is so fine and outstanding. Really hard to come by … As peasant stock often produces extraordinary talents, I encouraged him …” But Mao did not appear to have leadership qualities. Another teacher of his said later that he showed “no special talent for leadership” at school. When he tried to form a sort of club and put up notices, only a few people turned up and it did not come to anything. When a dozen friends formed a New People’s Study Society in April 1918, Mao was not elected its leader.
毛在晚年也说过意思一模一样的话。也就是说，年仅二十四岁的毛就已经用清晰的语言阐述了他漫长一生信守的人生观。当然，在一九一八年，这些话只是说说而已。尽管他不是一个等闲之辈，杨昌济教授称他“资质俊秀若此，殊为难得”，但毛没有显示出领袖天分。老师徐特立说在学校里看不出他有号召力。当毛发出征友启事，张贴在长沙部分学饺时，应召的只有几个。他跟朋友成立“新民学会”时，他虽然活跃，选出的总干事却不是他。
HE EVEN FOUND IT HARD to get a job after he graduated from the teacher-training college in June 1918. At the time, it was common for young graduates to aspire to go abroad to study. For those whose families could not afford to support them, as in Mao’s case, there was a scheme to go to France on a work-and-study program. France needed manpower after losing so many young men in the First World War (one of the jobs Chinese laborers had been brought in to do was to remove corpses from the battlefields).
那时的毛要找份像样的工作都很困难。一九一八年六月，他从师范学校毕业。许多年轻人向往出国学习。像毛这样家里不富裕的往往到法国去半工半读，勤工俭学。法国在第一次世界大战中损失了很多年轻男人，需要劳工。
Some of Mao’s friends went to France. Mao did not. The prospect of physical labor put him off. And another factor seems to have played a part—the requirement to learn French. Mao was no good at languages, and all his life spoke only his own local dialect and not even the putonghua—“common speech”—that his own regime made its official language. In 1920, when going to Russia was in vogue, and Mao fancied going (he told a girlfriend “my mind is filled with happiness and hope” at the thought), he was deterred by having to learn Russian. He made a stab at it, taking lessons from a Russian émigré (and agent), Sergei Polevoy. But according to Polevoy the other students teased Mao when he could not even master the alphabet, and he left in a huff. Unlike many of his radical contemporaries, including most of the future Chinese Communist leaders, Mao went to neither France nor Russia.
当劳工不是毛想干的事。去法国的人还得学法文，而毛不擅长语言，一辈子都只说湖南话。有一阵掀起俄罗斯热，毛也曾想去，对女朋友陶斯咏说：“我为这件事，脑子里装满了愉快和希望。”他在一个叫伯乐佛(Sergei Polevoy)的俄国移民(是个间谍)那里上了几堂课。据这人说，毛怎么也发不好生字表的音，别的学生都笑他，他就生气地离开了。结果，毛既没有去法国，也没有去俄国。
Instead, after leaving the college, Mao borrowed some money and set out for Peking, the capital, to try his luck. Peking in 1918 was one of the most beautiful cities in the world, where in front of magnificent palaces camels strolled in the streets. The imperial gardens near where Mao took lodgings had just been opened to the public. When winter came, he and his friends—all southerners who had seldom seen snow or ice—would marvel at the frozen lakes, encircled by drooping willows heavy with icicles and wide-open winter plums.
毛想到首都去碰碰运气，就借了路费去北京。北京当时是世界上最美的都市之一。在刚对公众开放的皇宫前，甚至还有骆驼庄重的缓步。但古都的生活是苦的。民国带来了前所未有的自由和机会，却没有明显地改善人民的生活，大多数人还活在一个“穷”字中。毛一行八人，住在三间小屋里，几个人合睡一张炕，同盖一床棉被，挤得紧紧的，要翻身得先跟左右的人打招呼。八人只有两件大衣，出门轮流穿。因为图书馆里有暖气，毛有时去那里，又看书又睡觉。
But life in the capital was harsh. The great freedom and opportunities that modernization had introduced to China had brought little material advantage, and much of the country was still extremely poor. Mao stayed with seven other friends in three tiny rooms. Four of them squeezed onto one kang, a heated brick bed, under a single quilt, packed so tight that when one of them needed to turn, he had to warn the men on either side. Between the eight of them, they had only two coats, and had to take turns going out. As there was heating in the library, Mao went there to read in the evenings.
Mao got nowhere in Peking. For a while he found work as a junior librarian, earning 8 yuan a month—a living wage. One of his jobs was to record the names of people who came to read the newspapers, many of made no great impression, and they paid him no attention. Mao felt snubbed, and he bore his grudges hard. He claimed later that “most of them did not treat me like a human being.”
有一段时间，毛在北京大学图书馆做助理员，一个月八块大洋，刚够生活。他的职责之一是登记来图书馆读报的人名。不少是当时着名的文化人，毛想跟他们攀谈，但他们“都是些大忙人”，毛后来说，“没有时间听一个图书馆助理员讲南方土话。” 毛感到受了冷落，一直耿耿于怀，说：“他们大多数都不把我当人看待。”
Less than six months after arriving, he left, so broke that he had to borrow money to travel home in stages. He returned to Changsha in April 1919, via Shanghai, where he saw his friends off to France. He had looked in from the outside at the intellectual and political life of cosmopolitan big cities, and now had to settle for a lowly job as a part-time history teacher in a primary school back in his home province.
不到六个月，他就打道回府，路费还是借的。他绕道上海，为去法国的朋友送行，一九一九年四月回到长沙。毛此行见识了大都市的文化生活，但最后还得回来做外省的小学教书匠。
Mao did not present himself as a model teacher. He was unkempt, and never seemed to change his clothes. His pupils remembered him disheveled, with holes in his socks, wearing home-made cotton shoes ready to fall apart. But at least he observed basic proprieties. Two years later, when he was teaching in another establishment, people complained about him being naked from the waist up. When asked to dress more decently, Mao retorted: “There wouldn’t be anything scandalous if I was stark naked. Consider yourself lucky I’m not completely naked.”
为人师表的毛当穿得邋里邋遢，好像永远不换衣服。学生们记得他不加梳理的头发和袜子上的窟窿。他似乎只有一双家制的布鞋，鞋底好像总处于即将磨穿的状况。一次，人们抱怨他夏天赤裸上身，毛反唇相讥说：“这就算不错啦，全赤我也无所谓！”
MAO HAD RETURNED to Changsha at a pivotal historical moment. At the time, there were a number of enclaves in China leased by foreign powers. These operated outside Chinese jurisdiction, with foreign gunboats often nearby to protect expatriates. Newly awakened public opinion in China demanded that these virtual mini-colonies be handed back. And yet, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which drew up the post–First World War settlement, and in which a Chinese delegation took part, allowed Japan to stay on in territory in Shandong which Japan had seized from Germany during the war. This infuriated nationalist sentiment. On 4 May 1919, for the first time in history, a big street demonstration took place in Peking, denouncing the government for “selling out,” and protesting against the Japanese holding on to Chinese territory. The movement ripped across China. Japanese goods were burned in cities and towns, and shops that sold them were attacked. Many Chinese were disappointed that a Republican government had not managed to obtain a better deal from foreign powers than its Manchu predecessor. The sentiment grew that something more radical must be done.
这时，一桩发生在大洋彼岸的事件在中国引起巨大反响。有中国代表团参与的为第一次世界大战善后的巴黎和会，让日本继续占领它在战争中从德国手头夺取的山东一部。爱国的中国人被激怒了。五月四日，北京爆发了有史以来第一次大规模街头游行示威，谴责北京政府卖国，抗议日本占领中国领土。“五四”运动波及全国，烧日本货，砸卖日货的商店。人们对民国政府深感失望，觉得它跟满清一样无能。许多人开始寻求更激進的治国方式。
In Changsha, where there were now so many foreign interests that Japan, the US and Britain had opened consulates there, a militant student union was formed, which included teachers. Mao was actively involved as the editor of its magazine, the Xiang River Review. In the first number, he declared his radical views: “We must now doubt what we dared not doubt, employ methods we dared not employ.” It was a shoestring operation: Mao not only had to write most of the articles himself, in stifling heat, while bedbugs raced over the pile of soft-bound Chinese classics that formed his pillow, he had to sell the Review at street corners. Only five issues were published.
一个激進的学生会在长沙成立，毛负责编辑会刊《湘江评论》。办杂志很辛苦。在难忍的闷热中，毛晚上用一堆线装书当枕头，臭虫在里面爬来爬去，白天不仅要写大部分稿子，还得到街头贩售，由于经济窘迫，这个学生周刊只出了五期，就停刊了。
Mao continued to write occasional pieces in other journals. Among his output were ten articles dealing with women and the family. Mao was an advocate of women’s independence, free choice in marriage, and equality with men—views not uncommon among the radicals. These outpourings seem to have been inspired by the death on 5 October 1919 of his mother, whom he loved. He had been sending her prescriptions for her ailments, diphtheria and a lymph node condition, and had arranged for her to be brought to Changsha for treatment. There, in spring that year, she had her first and only photograph taken at the age of fifty-two, with her three sons, an image of inner peace. Mao wears an expression of quiet determination and aloofness. Unlike his two brothers, who are clad in farmers’ garments and look like gauche peasants, he has an air of grace in his long gown, the traditional attire for scholars and gentry.
此后毛继续为别的刊物写文章。其中有十篇是关于妇女与家庭的，观点是那时大多数前卫青年的共识，即提倡妇女独立，自由恋爱，与男人平等。毛的文章感情充沛，原因可能跟他母亲刚于一九一九年十月五日去世有关。他母亲得了淋巴结核，毛曾给她寄药方，把她接来长沙治病。在毛跟母亲的关系中，母爱是无私的，毛的感情却是既强烈又自私。多少年以后，他告诉身边护士吴旭君：“我母亲死前我对她说，我不忍心看她痛苦的样子，我想让她给我留下一个美好的印象。我要离开一下。母亲是个通情达理的人，她同意了，所以到现在，我脑子里的母亲形象都是健康、美好的。”
In Mao’s relationship with his mother, while she seems to have shown unconditional love and indulgence for him, his treatment of her combined strong feelings with selfishness. In later life, he told one of his closest staff a revealing story: “When my mother was dying, I told her I could not bear to see her looking in agony. I wanted to keep a beautiful image of her, and told her I wanted to stay away for a while. My mother was a very understanding person, and she agreed. So the image of my mother in my mind has always been and still is today a healthy and beautiful one.” On her deathbed, the person who took priority in Mao’s consideration was himself, not his mother, nor did he hesitate to say so.
在母亲临终之际，毛首先考虑的是自己的感受，而不是母亲的希望。他能毫无顾忌地对她直说，性格由此可见一斑。对父亲，毛没有什么感情，对他的死的反应简直就是冷酷。父亲一九二0年一月二十三日死于伤寒，死前想见儿子一面。但毛没有回去，也没有对他的死表示任何悲伤。
Less surprisingly, Mao treated his dying father coldly. Yi-chang died from typhoid on 23 January 1920, and before his death he longed to see his eldest son, but Mao stayed away, and showed no feeling of sadness for him.
In an article written on 21 November 1919, shortly after his mother’s death, and entitled “On Women’s Independence,” Mao claimed that “Women can do as much physical labour as men. It’s just that they can’t do such work during childbirth.” So his answer to “women’s independence” was that “women should prepare enough … before they marry so as to support themselves,” and even that “women should stockpile necessities for the period of childbirth themselves.” Evidently, as a man, Mao did not want to have to look after women. He wanted no responsibility towards them. Moreover, his insistence that women could manage the same kind of manual labor as men, which went against obvious reality, showed he felt little tenderness towards them. When he came to power, the core of his approach to women was to put them to heavy manual labor. In 1951 he penned his first inscription for Women’s Day, which went: “Unite to take part in production …”
毛的硬心肠也反映在他关于女人的文章里。一九一九年十一月二十一日的(女子自立问题)说女子可以跟男子做一样重的体力劳动：“女子用其体力工作，本不下于男子”，只是“不能在生育期内工作”。对此毛说：“女子需自己预备产后的生活费。”
AT THE END OF 1919, radical students and teachers in Hunan started a drive to oust the provincial warlord governor, whose name was Chang Ching-yao. Mao went with a delegation to lobby the central government in Peking, writing petitions and pamphlets on an altar in a Tibetan temple where he was staying. Although the delegation failed to achieve its goal, Mao was able as a leading Hunan radical to meet some famous personalities, including Hu Shih, a brilliant liberal figure, and Li Ta-chao, a prominent Marxist.
毛的激進活动很快把他带向另一个旅途，这次旅程将决定他的一生，也将决定中国的命运。一九一九年底，湖南的学生和教师要赶走当时的省长张敬尧，毛随代表团前往北京，游说中央政府撤张。虽然此行没达到目的，但毛作为湖南的活跃分子结识了好些知名人物，包括自由派的领袖胡适，着名的马克思主义者李大钊。
But it was on his way back via Shanghai that Mao had the crucial encounter that was to change his life. In June 1920 he called on a Professor Chen Tu-hsiu, at the time China’s foremost Marxist intellectual, who was in the midst of forming a Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao had written a long article calling him “a bright star in the world of thought.” Aged forty, Chen was the undisputed leader of Chinese Marxists, a true believer, charismatic, with a volatile temper.
就在回程途中，一九二0年六月路经上海时，毛遇上了改变他终生的人：陈独秀。在当时的马克思主义知识分子中，陈是佼佼者，毛曾在一篇文章中称道他为“思想界的明星”。陈这时四十岁，是个极富魅力，但性情暴躁的人。毛去拜访陈，正好，陈在筹组中国共产党。
The idea of forming this Communist Party did not stem from the professor, nor from any other Chinese. It originated in Moscow. In 1919 the new Soviet government had set up the Communist International, the Comintern, to foment revolution and influence policy in Moscow’s interest around the world. In August, Moscow launched a huge secret program of action and subversion for China, starting a commitment of money, men and arms three decades long, which culminated in bringing the Communists under Mao to power in 1949—Soviet Russia’s most lasting triumph in foreign policy.
组建中共并不是陈教授的主意—也不是任何一个中国人的主意。这主意来自莫斯科。一九一九年，新生的苏俄政府成立了“共产国际”(第三国际)，以在全世界鼓吹革命，推行莫斯科的旨意。在中国，一项庞大的秘密计划在八月付诸实行，旨在扶持起一个亲俄的中国政府。此后三十年里，莫斯科投入了大量的人力、物力、军火，最终使毛领导下的中共得以夺取政权。
In January 1920 the Bolsheviks took Central Siberia and established an overland link with China. The Comintern sent a representative, Grigori Voitinsky, to China in April. In May it established a center in Shanghai, with a view, as another agent reported to Moscow, to “constructing a Chinese Party.” Voitinsky then proposed to Professor Chen that a Communist Party be set up. By June Voitinsky was reporting home that Chen was to be made Party Secretary (i.e., the head) and was contacting “revolutionaries in various cities.”
一九二0年二月，布尔什维克夺取了中西伯利亚，打通了跟中国的陆地交通。四月，共产国际代表维经斯基(Grigori Voitinsky)来到中国。五月，共产国际在上海建立了据点，目的是“组建一个中国党”。维经斯基向陈独秀提出这个建议，得到了陈的同意。六月，维经斯基向莫斯科汇报说，陈将做这个新党的书记，陈正在联系“各城市的革命者”。
This was exactly when Mao showed up on Chen’s doorstep. He had chanced upon the emergence of the CCP. Mao was not invited to be one of the founders. Nor, it seems, was he told it was about to be formed. The eight or so founding members were all eminent Marxists, and Mao had not yet even said that he believed in Marxism. The Party was founded in August, after Mao had left Shanghai.*
就在这个月，毛来见陈独秀，碰上了中国共产党的筹备创立。中共创始人都是资深的马克思主义者。据当事人回忆，他们是：陈独秀、李汉俊、陈望道、沈玄庐、俞秀松、李达、施存统和邵力子。毛没有被邀请为发起人之一，他这时还没表示信仰马克思主义。毛离开上海后，八月，中共成立。
中国官方把中共成立算在第二年七月，因为那时开了第一次全国代表大会，而毛出席了“一大”，可以名正言顺地被算成创始人。事实上，共产国际的刊物和它派来指导“一大”的马林(G．Maring)都权威性地指出，中共是一九二0年，而不是一九二一年成立的。
But although not one of the founders, Mao was in the immediate outer ring. Professor Chen gave him the assignment of opening a bookshop in Changsha to sell Party literature. The professor was in the middle of making his influential monthly, New Youth, the voice of the Party. The July issue carried write-ups about Lenin and the Soviet government. From that autumn the magazine was subsidized by the Comintern.
毛虽然不是创建者，但他开始为中共工作：陈独秀让他在长沙开一间书店卖共产党宣传品。陈教授刚把他的影响重大的杂志《新青年》改变为中共的喉舌，七月号就刊登了介绍列宁(V．I． Lenin)和苏俄政府的文章。从那时起，共产国际便出钱赞助《新青年》。毛的任务是推销《新青年》和其他宣传品，同时也卖一般的书、杂志。
Mao’s job was to distribute New Youth and other Communist publications (as well as selling other books and journals). Though not a committed Communist, Mao was a radical. He also loved books and welcomed a job. Soon after he returned to Changsha, an advertisement issued about the bookshop contained the bizarre declaration, penned by himself that: “There is no new culture in the entire world. Only a little flower of new culture has been discovered in Russia on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.” The bookshop immediately placed an order for 165 copies of the July issue of New Youth, by far its biggest order. Another large order, 130 copies, was for Labour World, a new Party journal for workers. Most other journals the bookshop ordered were radical and pro-Russia.
毛乐于从命。虽然他还没有信仰共产主义，但他毕竟是激進分子，又热爱书报，还需要一份像样的收入，开书店是求之不得。回长沙后不久，“文化书社”就在《大公报》上登报开张了。毛写了个夸耀苏俄的启事：不但湖南，全国一样尚没有新文化。全世界一样尚没有新文化。一枝新文化小花，发现在北冰洋岸的俄罗斯。”书店马上订了一百六十五份《新青年》的七月号，是书店的最大订单。其次是一百三十份《劳动界》，新生的中共对工人的宣传品。其他大部分书报也是亲俄激進的。
Mao was not risking his neck by undertaking pro-Communist activities, which were not a crime. For now, Communist Russia was actually in vogue. In Changsha, a Russia Study Society was being founded, with no less a personage than the county chief as its head. Russia’s popularity was in large part due to a fraud perpetrated by the new Bolshevik government—the claim that it was renouncing the old Tsarist privileges and territory in China, when in fact it retained them. Russian-controlled territory covered over a quarter of a million acres, and constituted the largest foreign concession in the country.
干这种事毛并非提着脑袋，那时候搞共产主义活动非但不犯法，相反地，苏俄正时髦。在长沙，一个俄罗斯研究会正在筹备，为首的是长沙知事。人们对苏俄感兴趣，大半出于相信苏俄政府的宣言，说要放弃沙皇政府在中国攫取的领土和特权。这番信誓旦旦，实际上只是空话，苏俄继续控制着在华最大的外国领地。
Mao was in charge of the bookshop, but he got a friend to run it. An important trait emerged at this time—he had a gift for delegating chores, and spotting the people to perform them. Mao gave himself the title of “special liaison man,” soliciting donations from the wealthy, and dealing with publishers, libraries, universities and leading intellectuals all over the country. Professor Chen and a number of luminaries were listed as guarantors for the bookshop, which hugely boosted Mao’s status, and helped him to win a creditable post as headmaster of the primary school attached to his old college.
毛找了个朋友做经理，他善于用人帮他做讨厌的杂务。他本人的头衔是“特别交涉员”， 向富人名流筹款，与全国各地的出版社、图书馆、大学、文化人联系。陈独秀和好几位知名人士为书店担保，大大提高了毛的声望。他从前读书的师范学校这时请他去做附小主事。
There is no evidence that Mao formally joined the Party now, although by November, thanks to the bookshop, he counted as “one of us.” When Moscow decided to set up an organization in Hunan called the Socialist Youth League, to create a pool of potential Party members, Mao was contacted to do the job. The following month, in a letter to friends in France, he declared that he “deeply agreed” with the idea of “using the Russian model to reform China and the world.” This was his first expression of Communist belief.
没有材料表明毛是怎样入党的，履行了什么手续。但由于文化书社，他成了“自己人”。十一月，按维经斯基指示，中共成立一个外围组织--社会主义青年团，从中发展党员。在长沙找的联络人之一是毛。也就是说，他已经算是共产党的成员了。十二月，毛给在法国的朋友写信，说他“深切的赞同”“用俄国式的方法去达到改造中国与世界”。这是毛第一次表达他信仰共产主义。
APPROACHING TWENTY-SEVEN, Mao had become a Communist—not after an idealistic journey, or driven by passionate belief, but by being at the right place at the right time, and being given a job that was highly congenial to him. He had effectively been incorporated into an expanding organization.
毛迈出这一步并不是热烈追求信仰的结果，而是机遇：他正好在某一时间出现在某一地点，接受了某一份恰到好处的工作，由此進入了一个由强大外国主持的新兴组织。
His best friend at the time, Siao-yu, thought the cost of the Russian way was too high and wrote to Mao from France saying what he and some others felt:
他那时最好的朋友萧瑜不赞成共产主义，从法国写信给毛说：
We don’t think some human beings should be sacrificed for the welfare of the majority. We are in favor of a moderate revolution, through education, and seeking the welfare of all … We regard Russian-style—Marxist—revolutions as ethically wrong …
“我们不认可以一部分的牺牲，换多数人的福利。主张温和的革命，以教育为工具的革命，为人民谋全体福利的革命……颇不认俄式--马克思式--革命为正当”。
Mao summed up their approach as “using peaceful means to seek the happiness of all.” He argued against it not on idealistic grounds but invoking sheer realism: “I have two comments …: All very well in theory; but can’t be done in practice.” “Ideals are important,” said Mao, “but reality is even more important.”
毛回信时不是狂热地为共产主义辩护，而是称他朋友的看法“理论上说得通，事实上做不到”。他这样劝说朋友：“理想固要紧，现实尤其要紧”
Mao was no fervent believer. This absence of heartfelt commitment would result in a most unconventional and unusual relationship with his Party throughout his life, even when he was the head of that Party.
毛信中的这类话表明，他参加共产党，不是出于充满激情的信仰，而是冷静实际的选择。
*This has been a delicate point for Mao and his successors, and as a result official history dates the founding of the Party to 1921, as that was the first time Mao could verifiably be located at a Party conclave, the 1st Congress. This is duly commemorated with a museum in Shanghai which enshrines the myth that Mao was a founding member of the Party. That the Party was founded in 1920, not 1921, is confirmed both by the official magazine of the Comintern and by one of the Moscow emissaries who organized the 1st Congress.