Mao's Women
Jun 16, 2005 -
© John Walsh
Mao Tse-Tung, the Great Helmsman, the leader of China for decades, was remarkably careless of the lives and well-being of other people, no matter how close to him they happened to be. He disliked his father, perhaps even hated him and pursued a life in which womanizing on a casual and also serious basis was combined with complete lack of interest in the impact his actions had. At least two of the children that he fathered with his second wife were abandoned on the so-called Long March, which appears in fact to have been a debacle which killed most of the poor infantry who had to carry Mao and the other party cadres in sedan chairs over thousands of miles of difficult terrain. Mao showed no interest at all in seeking to track down the abandoned children subsequently. Other children who were being kept as semi-hostages in the Soviet Union and who wrote constantly to their father seeking reassurance while lost and lonely in a foreign and hostile country received only occasional, cursory replies.
Mao married his first wife at a very early age, partly to placate his father who was threatening to cut off the money that was funding Mao's life as a scholar. The woman seems not even to have had a name of her own and soon died, seemingly unwanted and unloved. The second wife suffered severe mental trauma as a result of the Long March and spent the rest of her tragic life travelling around the countryside searching fruitlessly for her lost children. Communist women were offered the chance of personal liberation and the opportunity to make careers outside of the home. Unfortunately, from Mao down, the majority of the Communist men expected those women to complete the full load of domestic duties in addition to their external work.
A third Mao wife was abandoned for the actress who was to become the infamous Madame Mao and who caused such havoc in the lives of other people. Mao himself treated other women as expendable pawns: foreign guests or agents were encouraged to choose women on the streets who would then be compelled to be married to them. As Mao aged, he became increasingly obsessive about his personal health. He took seriously the traditional Chinese belief that making love to a young woman, preferably a virgin, would help to restore and reinvigorate a man's health and vigor. Girls from throughout China were brought to his bed, some willingly and some not.
Mao was responsible for the deaths of more people than anyone else in recorded history. Millions died in famines his policies caused or else were tortured to death or sacrificed in war to satisfy his own vanity. His lack of compassion for women or genuine interest in them as human beings helps to demonstrate the indifference with which he treated human life.
References and Further Reading
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005).
Spence, Jonathan, Mao London: Phoenix, 2000).
John Walsh, Shinawatra International University, June 2005. Blog: http://jcwalsh.bravejournal.com
Mao married his first wife at a very early age, partly to placate his father who was threatening to cut off the money that was funding Mao's life as a scholar. The woman seems not even to have had a name of her own and soon died, seemingly unwanted and unloved. The second wife suffered severe mental trauma as a result of the Long March and spent the rest of her tragic life travelling around the countryside searching fruitlessly for her lost children. Communist women were offered the chance of personal liberation and the opportunity to make careers outside of the home. Unfortunately, from Mao down, the majority of the Communist men expected those women to complete the full load of domestic duties in addition to their external work.
A third Mao wife was abandoned for the actress who was to become the infamous Madame Mao and who caused such havoc in the lives of other people. Mao himself treated other women as expendable pawns: foreign guests or agents were encouraged to choose women on the streets who would then be compelled to be married to them. As Mao aged, he became increasingly obsessive about his personal health. He took seriously the traditional Chinese belief that making love to a young woman, preferably a virgin, would help to restore and reinvigorate a man's health and vigor. Girls from throughout China were brought to his bed, some willingly and some not.
Mao was responsible for the deaths of more people than anyone else in recorded history. Millions died in famines his policies caused or else were tortured to death or sacrificed in war to satisfy his own vanity. His lack of compassion for women or genuine interest in them as human beings helps to demonstrate the indifference with which he treated human life.
Spence, Jonathan, Mao London: Phoenix, 2000).
The copyright of the article Mao's Women in East Asian History is owned by John Walsh. Permission to republish Mao's Women in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Articles in this Topic
